Europe were given a good scare on Sunday at the Ryder Cup, with Luke Donald’s men needing to win just two of the 11 singles matches to retain the trophy at Bethpage Black.
Ultimately, the Europeans did just about enough to ensure that they would hold onto the Ryder Cup. Ludvig Aberg was their only winner on Sunday, but half points lower down the order from the likes of Shane Lowry, Tyrrell Hatton and Robert MacIntyre proved to be crucial.
Team USA certainly gave the visitors a good scare in New York.
Justin Rose, Tommy Fleetwood, Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm were all beaten in their matches. The quartet had been pivotal in taking Europe to the brink of victory. But they ran out of steam on Sunday.
Rose was given the task of taking on the USA’s best player all week, Cameron Young.
The Englishman had found himself 1 up after five holes. However, Young won four of the next seven holes to put himself 3 up with six to play.
The 13th hole provided one of the more controversial incidents on the final day. Rose’s second shot on the par five had left him well right of the hole on the par five. With the stands nearby, the 45-year-old was able to take relief. However, it was around 15 minutes before he hit his next shot.
Smylie Kaufman suggests Justin Rose may have crossed the line during his match with Cameron Young
And speaking on The Smylie Show, Smylie Kaufman explained some of the conversations which took place before Rose hit his third shot.
He also suggested that the European was quite happy to take his time in the hope of halting Young’s momentum.
“So Justin Rose has an opportunity to drop on this steep slope, so the ball’s going to be above his feet. Take a drop and really, the only way he was going to have a shot is if the drop rolled out of the tee line – so you’ve got to keep it within the tees, or if it gets on the cart path, you get to place it – and so I’m thinking to myself I think it’s steep enough to where he’s going to be able to drop it close enough to his tee, the ball’s going to roll down the hill and he’s going to place it. And he’s going to have a difficult shot, but he’s got an alleyway and an opportunity. And Cam Young was inside of 10 feet,” he said.
“So he takes one drop. Now, this is five minutes into the whole process. It’s taking too long. And all of a sudden before he takes his second drop, there was questions asked, whether it was Justin or his caddie Fooch and a rules official standing by, of looking at potentially other options instead of dropping it again. All of a sudden, Fooch is now running up to the green to look at potentially taking a drop on the tee at 14. So with that structure behind 14, you had an option to take no closer to the hole, nearest point of relief, and go drop it on the tee at 14. So we’re talking about 30 to 50 yards over on the other side, on top of the hill. Fooch walked off the yardage all the way to the tee at 14. But it made no sense to me at all that we’re wasting this much time because there were trees in the way. It never seemed like an option unless you hit this mega flop.
“And so they’re going through this process. Now we’re 10 minutes in. All of a sudden, Keegan, he comes driving up because the vice-captains are sending communications to Keegan, ‘hey, you need to get up here because they’re slow-playing this whole rules situation’. And so Keegan comes flying down the hill, runs up to ref and says, ‘you have to got to speed up this ruling, this is taking entirely too long’, and basically asking, ‘you need to show me what’s going down here, why is he able to get a drop up here?’ That was explained.
“Eventually Justin just decided to drop in that same little strip. He has 75 yards, hits this shot that takes a little bit of a fortunate kick out of the rough, spins up there and he’s somehow got four feet for birdie. This was a 15 minute ordeal.
“Remember he’s 3 up, Cam Young is, and now Cam Young misses the putt, Justin Rose makes. Justin Rose birdies the next hole and is somehow 1 down heading into 15.
“The only last thing I’ll say is that walking down the 14th hole, Keegan is wearing out this rules official, because the rules officials need to be more direct and if a player asks what their options are, they need to tell them what they are and be quick in the process. A player can’t slow play a situation like what happened at the 13th hole today.
“I felt like it crossed the line, because you owe it to the player you’re playing with to play with a pace that is supposed to be respectful. I thought it got out of hand there at 13 with the drop. Yes, it was confusing and challenging to figure out, but that’s why you have three rules officials walking with every single group to be able to give quick feedback on what the player’s options are.”
Justin Rose had every reason to take his time with Team USA giving themselves a chance of the game’s greatest comeback at Bethpage
Rose went on to hit an outrageous third shot to set up a birdie which brought him back into the match.
In fact, that was the first of three wins over the next four holes to ensure that the game was tied heading down the 17th.
Ultimately, Young would hold his nerve to win on the 18th. The pair both had very makeable putts on the final green. However, Rose could not go to the well one more time after a phenomenal putting performance over the previous two days.
In fairness to Rose, it was quite clear at that stage that the Ryder Cup was going to be significantly closer than it had any right to be. So he had every reason to take as much time as he could to put himself in the best possible spot.
It threatened to be a real turning point in the match. Thankfully for Young, he was able to recover and deliver what had the potential to be a massive point for the Americans.
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