September 24, 2006 - 15:21
By: DOUG FERGUSON
European Ryder Cup team player Darren Clarke kisses the trophy. (AP/Laurent Rebours)
STRAFFAN, Ireland (AP) - Favourites or underdogs in the Ryder Cup, it doesn't matter to the Europeans.
They wanted to win for Darren Clarke and the memory of his wife, for a captain who relied on instincts, for each other. Boasting their best team ever, they backed it up by turning the Ryder Cup into another rout Sunday, winning 18 1/2-9 1/2 to make history as the first European team to win three straight times.
There's no question who owns this Ryder Cup - the trophy and the tournament.
Europe won 8 1/2 points from the 12 singles matches - the total the Americans needed for an unlikely comeback - and the final score matched the largest margin of victory set in 2004 at Oakland Hills.
Only a gesture of sportsmanship kept Europe, which has won five of the last six Ryder Cups, from the biggest rout by either side since this format began in 1979. J.J. Henry needed to make a 25-foot birdie putt to halve his match, and Paul McGinley conceded the putt.
Luke Donald holed a 10-foot par putt that gave Europe 14 points, all it needed to keep the shiny gold trophy. Moments later, Henrik Stenson closed out his match to give his team an outright victory, and the celebration was on.
The tears flowed, too.
Clarke wasn't sure he should play in this Ryder Cup after his wife, Heather, died of cancer on Aug. 13. He went nearly two months without playing as he tried to cope with such a loss, leaving him a single father of two young boys.
But he agreed to be a captain's pick and then won every match he played.
After beating Zach Johnson on the 16th hole, Clarke broke down in tears as dropped his head on caddie Billy Foster's shoulder, then walked into the arms of captain Ian Woosnam, sobbing amid cheers and songs.
"It's done a lot for me for people to show me how much they care," Clarke said. "And it's done a lot to show how much they cared about Heather, and that means a lot to me. It's been a difficult week. From the minute I got here, I was determined to get myself ready, and I was. I played the way Woosie wanted me to."
He had plenty of help from the rest of the Europeans.
"I don't know if there's ever been a European team that played better," U.S. captain Tom Lehman said. "Our team came ready. Our team came very ready. I guess we weren't ready enough."
The Europeans showed their superior skills in celebration, too.
Captain Ian Woosnam uncorked the champagne on the 18th green, and the bubbly came down harder than Sunday's early rain. Clarke stood atop a balcony and guzzled a pint of Guinness as the Irish crowd roared.
"We've put on a great show," McGinley said.
The match didn't end until Chris DiMarco conceded the 18th after twice hitting the ball into the water. DiMarco tried to keep alive his tough-guy image, shaking his fist after a birdie on the 17th kept his meaningless match alive, apparently not aware the Americans had been embarrassed again in the Ryder Cup.
"A lot of our guys played good individually," David Toms said. "As a team, we didn't play great at times. We didn't pick each other up like they did."
Colin Montgomerie won his opening match and tied a Ryder Cup record with his sixth singles victory. Sergio Garcia failed to become the first European to go 5-0 at the Ryder Cup, losing to Stewart Cink. But his perfect record in team matches staked them to an insurmountable lead.
The Americans countered with Tiger Woods, who had his first winning record in a Ryder Cup, but that wasn't nearly enough.
It was the first time in the 79-year history of the Ryder Cup that Europe won outright three straight times. Going for three in a row in 1989, they settled for a tie to retain the cup.
Not this time.
Europe was so dominant it won all five sessions for the first time in history, and it completed its biggest rout ever in Sunday singles, the format the Americans once owned.
"We weren't just trying to get to 14 1/2, we were trying to get as much as we can," Donald said after holing the cup-clinching putt, giving him a 3-0 record this week. "We truly believed they would have to do something special to come back and win."
The Americans' lone highlight was Scott Verplank, who made a hole-in-one on the 14th hole to beat Padraig Harrington. Verplank won both his matches and had the only perfect record among Americans, raising questions about why Lehman made him a captain's pick and then only used him twice.
The lowlights were not limited to the scoreboard.
As if getting whipped for the third straight time wasn't bad enough, the Americans got embarrassed in other ways. Woods was preparing to chip from just short of the seventh green when he handed his nine-iron to caddie Steve Williams, who promptly dropped it in the River Liffey.
Woods could only laugh. By that time, there was no way Europe was going to lose its grip on this trophy.
Woods went on to a 3-and-2 victory over Robert Karlsson and finished the week at 3-2. He spent the final hours walking around The K Club and listening to gallery sing and chant "Ole," the new anthem of this event.
"Ohhh-lay, Ole, Ole, Oh-laaaay, Ohhh-lay, Ohhh-lay."
The Americans faced long odds, trailing 10-6 going into the 12 singles matches, and tried to rally behind the memory of Brookline in 1999 when they faced the same deficit and staged the greatest comeback ever.
That was Boston. This was Ireland.
The lone rookie on that U.S. team was David Duval, who was No. 2 in the world. This American team had four unheralded rookies and couldn't even rely on its stars. Of the top six players who qualified for the team, four of them did not win a match. The biggest flop was Masters champion Phil Mickelson, who went 0-4-1 and has won only one match in his last two Ryder Cups.
The biggest difference of all was the colour on the scoreboards.
The Americans needed them to be awash in red, hopeful that would inspire the back end of the lineup. Just like the first two days, however, European blue was in vogue.
"You had to make birdies early. You had to get ahead in your match," Woods said. "By the looks of it, the Europeans are doing that."
Montgomerie went out first and delivered the first point for Europe, taking the lead with a four-foot birdie on the third hole and never trailing in his 1-up victory over David Toms. In the third spot, Paul Casey completed an unbeaten week at The K Club by building a 4-up lead at the turn and handing Jim Furyk his first singles loss, 2 and 1.
The only Americans who did their part were Woods and Stewart Cink, the first time a U.S. captain's pick played all five matches. Cink birdied four of his first five holes and buried Garcia, 4 and 3.
Furyk had said the Americans looked "constipated" when they played at the Ryder Cup, and that included him. Even after a 20-foot birdie putt to halve the 14th hole, Furyk looked uptight.
The Americans talked about having fun for a chance, and they sure did - until the matches started. They learned anew that it's difficult to smile when the other team is winning, especially when Europe is winning big.
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