The new emperors of Rome cut quite the picture, as Europe – who regained the Ryder Cup with a 16½ to 11½ win over the United States – cut loose. None of the players quite managed to join those fans who somehow thought it was a good idea to dive into the lake on the 18th hole at Marco Simone Golf Club, perhaps aware that snakes inhabit the waters, but their sheer joy was unbridled.
Hugging, kissing, yupping and hollering. All kinds of things. The outpouring of emotions, with Shane Lowry as chief cheerleader, was entirely understandable it must be said after the European team – dominant since Friday morning’s whitewash in the first session – finally managed to cross a line that seemed to be moving away from them at stages of a final day’s singles that saw the United States finally realise the urgency of their plight.
Europe’s winning point was finally sealed by Englishman Tommy Fleetwood, who was in the penultimate singles match against Rickie Fowler. That it might go down that far in the order before the job was done had been the subject of mirth between Fleetwood, Robert MacIntyre and Lowry in the locker room before they followed the rest of their team on to the course.
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That it did go down to them was as much about the Americans taking the singles to the home side. But the result mirrored those of recent history. For the eighth time in the last nine Ryder Cups, the home team triumphed.
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“In the Ryder Cup, there’s always lot off swings and emotions and changes. At one point I was looking at the board trying to figure out how we get to 14½ points but, in the end, we got there easily,” said Europe’s captain Luke Donald.
Well, not that easily, even if emphatically in the end.
The two Irish players on the 12-man team certainly played full parts in the win. Rory McIlroy’s singles win over Sam Burns meant the Northern Irishman won four out of five points after playing in all five sessions, while Lowry showed exactly why Donald had favoured him with a wild card pick in coming from three down through five holes against Jordan Spieth to be one up after 17 and, then, with the overall match outcome determined with Fleetwood’s win, he went up the 18th fairway hugging team and family members before ultimately halving his match.
For McIlroy, an incident that occurred on the 18th green on Saturday evening carried over into the singles. McIlroy remained very annoyed by the antics of Patrick Cantlay’s caddie, Joe LaCava, in interfering with him by waving his cap and talking at him as he lined up a putt and which subsequently led to him addressing his grievances to Jim “Bones” McKay in the car park.
“He was the first American I saw after I got out of the locker room so he was the one that took the brunt of it. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said McIlroy, who apologised to McKay before the singles.
But McIlroy also claimed the LaCava incident acted as a motivation for the singles. “I don’t think it just motivated me. I think it motivated the entire team. We felt like we were disrespected on that last green and we wanted to go out and honestly make it hurt for them. That’s what we wanted to do,” said McIlroy, who added: “We all got caught up in the moment and things happen and I am just glad we got the victory.”
Anyway, the look on Lowry’s face was priceless when McIlroy later explained how he had used a form of meditation – especially related to Rome – on his way to the course to clear his mind ahead of the singles.
“So, I’ve read Marcus Aurelius’s meditations. I’ve studied Stoicism for a while and read a lot of those sort of books. I just thought as a former emperor of Rome and seeing that we are in Rome, I thought it would be a good time to revisit some of his thoughts, and I revisited them on the way to the course today,” revealed McIlroy.
He was most probably alone in using such methodology but it certain worked. Although McIlroy also joked that Lowry had taken him down to the “cold plunge” in the hotel on Saturday night to get him to cool down.
For Lowry, it was about letting his emotions loose. Lowry wears them on his sleeve, which is his way and why the Ryder Cup is now very much a part of his DNA.
“Myself and Tommy and Bob were in the locker room before we went out and we joked about hoping that it wasn’t going to come down to our matches and I couldn’t believe what we were seeing on the board, to be honest. Those last couple of hours were probably two of the most stressful hours on the golf course I’ve had,” said Lowry.
“Selfishly I was thinking, you know, ‘I’m going to have a putt to win the Ryder Cup, this is going to be amazing’. Thankfully, Tommy did it before me ... what matters to me is winning, and I’m very happy and very proud of the lads.”
