Team Europe looked to have the Ryder Cup won with a day to spare.
Chants of “olé, olé, olé!” rang around the 18th green of Bethpage Black, with the Europeans leading 11.5 to 4.5 on Saturday night. After a day of abuse from the New York fans, only the voices from across the pond could be heard once the day was done.
It was a release for players like Rory McIlroy, who endured the worst of the abuse. They felt they could celebrate with the win all but secured. But there was an underlying threat to these scenes. Complacency.
The event looked over after Saturday, but Keegan Bradley’s Team USA painted the scoreboard red during Sunday singles to strike fear in the hearts of Europe. They nearly pulled off the greatest comeback in Ryder Cup history.
And according to Shane Lowry, who sank the Ryder Cup retaining putt, he saw this coming from a mile away.
What Shane Lowry warned Team Europe about after Saturday’s Ryder Cup celebrations
This was an experienced European group, with all but one of the players having played together in 2023. But they let themselves get carried away. Lowry was one of the few who didn’t look exhausted entirely on the final day.
The Irishman warned Europe of the potential of an American comeback on Sunday. Lowry explained to the BBC, “I said it to the boys on the Saturday night, there’s always an hour [where things can dramatically change] on the Sunday of a Ryder Cup, no matter what the score is going into it.
“From the outside looking in or if you’re sitting at home on your couch watching it, it doesn’t look like that, but it certainly feels like that when you’re out on the course. So I knew the Americans were going to come out firing.”
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Lowry tied with Russell Henley to bring Europe’s tally on the day to 1.5 points, before Tyrrell Hatton won the Ryder Cup for Europe by tying Collin Morikawa. The scoreline didn’t do Europe’s play justice, but they did just enough to get over the line.
But despite Lowry’s warning on Saturday, doubt began to creep into the minds of some players on Sunday, especially those going out later in the day who didn’t expect their matches to matter.
What Robert MacIntyre privately thought during Team USA’s Ryder Cup comeback
Robert MacIntyre played in the final match of Sunday, taking on Sam Burns. It wasn’t a match anyone expected to have an impact on the event’s outcome, but as the American wins started to come in one by one, it suddenly looked like a match with massive consequences.
MacIntyre was told as much by Team Europe Vice Captains Thomas Bjorn and the Molinari brothers, Edoardo and Francesco, and he admitted that doubt crept into his mind.
The Scot said, “Thomas [Bjorn] and one of the Molinari brothers came up to me and said we need your half point. We really need your half point.
“I’m like, where are we winning two and a half points? And then the longer it went on, the more I started thinking: We’re not going to get these two and a half points.”
But by the time he walked up to the 18th green, his match couldn’t affect the result. Europe had already won, and the celebrations had started. There was still one final score to settle, however.
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Viktor Hovland pulled out of the event that morning with a neck injury, triggering the highly controversial envelope rule, which forced him and Harris English to halve a point. If Europe had won by half a point, some said an asterisk would be added to the result.
The team wanted to put that beyond any doubt, and discouraged MacIntyre from conceding a putt to Burns, which would have won him the match.
He explained, “I wasn’t really understanding when we were playing 18. I wanted to give Sam the putt, [because] it’s over. But I think the whole team didn’t want to be bothered with the Hovland thing, and that half point took that away from them.”
Burns three-putted the 18th, which tied the match and put the envelope rule in the rear view mirror. Thanks to MacIntyre, no one can argue that Hovland’s injury decided the outcome.
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