AMERICA rising. America with their noses in front and their dander up. America with an increasingly noisy Louisville on their side and Boo Weekley leading the charge. Boo-ess-eh, they cried. Boo-ess-eh. From the wilderness of Florida to centre stage of world golf, Weekley claimed a slice of history for himself, bringing down Lee Westwood in the afternoon fourballs, Westwood who had gone 12 matches unbeaten in the Ryder Cup, the banker bet for a European points mountain this week.
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Watch a slideshow of pictures of Saturday's play at the Ryder CupEurope chasing. Europe with their confidence growing and their fans making their presence felt. What Weekley is to America, Ian Poulter is to the visitors. Poulter is the stand-out man, the colossus. Nobody is holing the putts Poulter is holing, nobody, not even Weekley, is carrying himself with the certainty of the Englishman. He announced himself as a player of world-class stature yesterday, sinking putts from everywhere, for birdies and wins, for pars and halves. And sinking the winning putt on the 18th green, his second win of the day.
The upshot is this: America lead going into the singles but only just. They are 9-7 ahead and Europe will have to do something they've only ever done once before, come from behind on the final day to win the Ryder Cup, but anything is possible here today. Anything.
Oh, it was a remarkable day's golf, the afternoon pace being set by the rematch between Weekley and JB Holmes and Lee Westwood and Soren Hansen. Some edge here from Friday. Some bad feeling. Westwood made no secret of his distaste for some of Weekley's antics in trying to get the crowd screeching on Friday afternoon, a hardly sophisticated but wholly successful tactic of waving at them furiously every chance he got. Weekley listened to what Westwood had to say – and promptly ignored it. He has become the talisman, the heartbeat of this American team. He had the galleries eating out his hand with the quality of his golf and the strength of his patriotism and it all amounted to a 2&1 beating of the Europeans.
It was largely Boo who did the damage. Holmes had his moments but there was no mistaking the senior man, no getting away from the tension between himself and Westwood.
From the first green, it started, Weekley holing a 20-footer for birdie and whipping up the crowd, Westwood following him in from 18ft and doing an exaggerated fist-pump that was meant purely for one man and one man only. For Westwood, though, it was not the start of something special. He was not his imperious self, Hansen doing most to keep the Americans at bay with a birdie bomb on the 11th and another from shorter range on the 13th until he could hold them no longer.
On the 14th, Weekley sank a putt from the fringe of the green and all of Valhalla went berserk. That was the most significant blow in the match, the one that took the American pair two-up, a lead they refused to give up.
The home team's lead now stretched to 8-5 and all eyes turned to the three remaining matches, all desperately tight. The second game out was Ben Curtis and Steve Stricker against Sergio Garcia (who'd asked to be rested for the morning foursomes) and Paul Casey. This was nip and tuck redefined, never more than a hole in it, America taking the lead at the second and a Garcia birdie levelling it at the 11th. And there they stayed, in stalemate.
Garcia has been nowhere near his best this week but there were signs now that he was getting there, four birdies in six holes from the 8th to the 13th.
Casey? Not at the races, not even close. They were all square going down the last, the stakes riding on their match lost on nobody.
Stricker putted like a demon in the match, none of his efforts as eye-poppingly good as the birdie on the 18th (from a nasty spot in the rough) that piled the pressure high on the European pair. Both of them had a putt to halve the match, Casey away. Having contributed precious little all day, Casey showed nerves of steel and sank a 12-footer to square the match. It was stunning conclusion to an engrossing contest.
The score now: eight and a half to five and a half. Next down the 18th, this magnificently theatrical hole: match three, Poulter and Graeme McDowell and Kenny Perry and Jim Furyk. Europe were defending a one-hole lead, Poulter the main man but McDowell contributing much in a game of the highest quality. Poulter made birdies freely on his way to the 18th, a long-range stunner coming on the 17th. Europe looked invincible at that point, unstoppable. Then Furyk stepped up and, with a 15-footer to keep the match alive, Furyk made it.
So yet again, the 18th saw action and yet again it was Poulter who had the final say, dropping his sixth birdie of the day for the most delicious victory and setting off wild scenes of celebration in Team Europe.
With the match now at eight and a half to six and a half, the attention turned to the bottom game, Phil Mickelson and Hunter Mahan against Henrik Stenson and Robert Karlsson. Mickelson suffered trauma in the morning with an unexpected loss but he got his game back in order. And how.
Mickelson was 4-under on the front nine alone and America led by two. Then Karlsson stirred for the first time this week. From the 12th to the 15th, he birdied every hole and the match was level. Mickelson had a great opportunity to win the 17th but let a 5ft putt slip by. That one was to be settled on the final hole, too, the match halved in birdies.
What a day's golf we had. The morning session, which Europe won two and a half to one and a half, had set things up beautifully, a session that saw Poulter's fantastic form continue with another point in the company of Justin Rose, Padraig Harrington's form drop away with Karlsson alongside and McDowell's dream continued with a ballsy clutch putt for a half on the 18th green. But the story of the morning, no question, was the downfall of the American pair, Mickelson and Anthony Kim, at the hands of Stenson and the rookie Oliver Wilson in his first start of the week.
That match looked so hopelessly one-sided that you'd have remortgaged the house to lump as much hard cash as possible on the Americans. From a seemingly unassailable position of 4-up after six holes the Americans collapsed, carving it left and right into trees, finding sand, dumping it in a creek, missing putts they would earlier have dropped in their sleep.
The sure-footed Mickelson suddenly vanished in front of our eyes and with him went the dash of his young partner. Mickelson's approach to the par-5 7th hit a rock, ricocheted into the crowd from where Kim dumped it into the water. The hole was lost when Wilson chipped stone dead for birdie. On the par-3 8th, Kim found sand off the tee and that hole was lost, too, to par. On the par-5 10th Kim found the bunker once again with his tee shot and once again Mickelson hit the crowd. Another European birdie courtesy of a Stenson pitch to two feet brought the gap down to one hole.
Their nightmare continued on the 12th, the errant Kim hitting it way right off the tee and Mickelson failing to shift it out of the trees thereafter. Wilson's serene approach to the green brought the match level
American mishap followed American mishap. On the 15th Mickelson's drive flew into the trees on the left while Wilson pinged his down the middle. Kim tried to hit a big hook out of trouble and ended up in a creek. Stenson, meanwhile, hit it into 12ft and suddenly, sensationally, Europe were ahead.
Onwards to the 17th where Mickelson and Kim were put out of their misery with a piece of sheer magic from Wilson. What an enormous moment his 25ft putt could prove in the overall picture come tonight. The young man, as cool as you like, found the centre of the hole and punched the air. Mickelson had a putt to bring the match down the 18th but couldn't make it and one of the great Ryder Cup comebacks was complete.
What history will be made today? It will be a joy to discover.
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