WHAT A SERGE!
Spanish highs as matadors Garcia and Cabrera-Bello fight back for an amazing half at Hazeltine
DOES sport get any better than what we were privileged to witness on a morning of raw emotion and golf of the purest quality at the Ryder Cup yesterday?
So good was it that it seemed quite ridiculous there were only four points at stake, as each produced an episode of incredible theatre.
Like all the best dramas, this one produced a twist at the end that nobody could have foreseen.
Four up with only six holes to play, it seemed for all the world that the hitherto irresistible Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed would make it 2-2 on the morning and enable the Americans to preserve their twopoint, first-day lead.
But the two Spaniards Sergio Garcia and Rafa Cabrera-Bello came up with a performance over those closing holes that evoked the memory of Seve Ballesteros and Jose Maria Olazabal.
Here were two more warriors from that nation who didn’t know when they were beaten.
The Americans were an amazing six under par in establishing their four-up lead.
But, almost unbelievably given what they had been up against, the Spaniards came back from the dead, winning four out of five holes to grab a remarkable half point. From the ignominy of that first morning whitewash the Europeans continued their recovery, therefore, with only a point between the teams going into the afternoon fourballs.
‘Keep at it, keep at it,’ Garcia urged his friend over those closing holes, as they kept taking points from their vaunted opponents.
The Spanish pair drew level at the 17th in quite remarkable circumstances.
Spieth had a putt from 30ft and — like so many putts of that length which he strikes — this one seemed destined for the bottom of the hole. Somehow, it didn’t drop but stayed on the edge instead. Spieth was aghast. He felt even worse when Cabrera-Bello held his nerve to hole a 15ft birdie putt to square the match.
For Spieth, this must have been bringing back memories of his shocking collapse at the Masters. At the 18th, Reed was forced to hole a putt of six feet simply to get a half point and quell the fraying nerves of his partner. Here, Darren Clarke has become the first captain in Ryder Cup history to field eight different partnerships in the eight different foursomes matches.
And if that gives the impression he made it up as he went along, that’s exactly what was happening.
He got lucky, however, when he decided to stick with Rory McIlroy and Thomas Pieters, who had won together in the fourballs.
‘We hadn’t even practised together to the extent we flipped a coin to see who teed off first,’ said McIlroy.
All that statistical information Clarke has been digesting, all that planning, and sometimes what works is a hunch.
Mind you, we’ve never seen McIlroy like we’ve seen him here. He is on a personal mission to quieten the deafening home support.
This time last week he was winning £9.2million at the FedEx Cup but he didn’t come close to being as motivated as he is here, where he is playing for nothing.
Give a man all that money but when he’s playing for pride it is priceless.
When McIlroy found out he was playing against Phil Mickelson, the Northern Irishman yelled out: ‘Yes!’ He’d lost his three previous matches against the veteran lefty and, well, what chance did even the prodigiously gifted Mickelson have when McIlroy wants to get his own back?
After a first day where the pressure seemed to get to the players a little, here they let their emotions fly and the standard went up a clear level. So did the noise. Oh, the noise.
‘My goodness, I’ve never heard anything like this,’ said Jack Nicklaus, who came out to support the American cause.
While some of it was mean and a lot hostile, let’s also pay tribute to the vast majority who were at Hazeltine to give a vivid demonstration of American pride.
When criticising the few, bear in mind that tens of thousands of others packed the grandstands at places such as the 16th to capacity at 7.30am, knowing full well that in the best-case scenario they wouldn’t see a shot struck until 11am. In the worst, they might not see a shot at all.
There were screens showing the action and so when an American putt dropped it felt like an explosion of noise was detonating across 200 acres of land.
The loudest cheers were reserved for the largely unheralded pairing of Brooks Koepka and Brandt Snedeker. They were all square with six holes to play against Henrik Stenson and rookie Matt Fitzpatrick before producing a finish that would have been sensational in fourballs, never mind foursomes.
This pair of Americans are among the most personable. When the wonderfully talented Koepka cold-shanked his approach to the 12th he laughed loudly at his own failing.
Imagine then having to step on to a par three requiring a 248-yard long iron for your next shot? Koepka showed his mettle, putting the ball 4ft from the hole at the 13th.
The Americans followed that birdie with three more to close out the match and send the crowd into rapture. But it would prove the only full point they would win.
Coming up behind was another experienced hand and an English rookie, Justin Rose and Chris Wood. They appeared to be cruising with a three-up advantage and only six holes to play.
But as the morning’s events would prove, no lead was safe on this day. Back came Americans Zach Johnson and Jimmy Walker. There was just one in it going to the 17th. Over the last two holes, however, Rose would show all his class and Wood all his potential.
At the last, after another excellent Rose approach, Wood deftly cosied his putt to the side of the hole to clinch his first Ryder Cup point.
Even better was to come for the Europeans, of course. No-one gave their last pairing a chance with Spieth and Reed doing what they usually do and holing every putt they looked at.
When Garcia missed a short one to lose the 11th and go four down, he dropped to his haunches and that seemed to be it. But no-one has made
a bigger contribution to the European Ryder Cup cause over the last 17 years than Garcia, and here he showed why.
How the hell he has never won a major remains one of the great mysteries, given how nervelessly he plays in these matches. This was another notch on his belt, as he adds to a legacy that sits right there alongside Seve and Ollie.
Clarke has worked his superstars like Garcia hard so far and who knows whether it will tell come the singles on Sunday. But that was a worry for another day, when placed alongside a morning that was quite simply sporting heaven.