Woods felt helpless

Tiger Woods tonight admitted his frustration at being reduced to the role of powerless spectator as Europe swept to victory in the Ryder Cup.

A brilliant display by Sam Torrance’s side in the final day singles saw the trophy lost before the world number one, playing the last of the 12 matches, could do anything about it.

“It was frustrating,” said Woods, who eventually halved his match with Jesper Parnevik after Paul McGinley’s par putt had sealed a stunning victory for the home side.

“Going down the first I said to Jesper I think it will probably come down to our match. I wish it would have but unfortunately it didn’t.

“I realised after I hit my tee shot on the 17th it was all over.”

Strange refused to accept he had blundered by leaving Woods and world number two Phil Mickelson to play the last two matches, Mickelson crucially losing to world number 119 Phillip Price 3 and 2.

Asked about his decision not to put his ’top’ players out early, Strange said: “Scott Hoch can play a pretty good game of golf, David Toms can play and David Duval is a pretty good player.

“I think it’s an insult to those three players.”

He added: “Sam did one hell of a job. I thought he took one heck of a gamble by loading the top half because if they don’t do well, to my mind it’s over.

“But they got blue on the board early, the crowd got into it and that was exactly what Sam wanted. It turns out to be smart but I’ve never seen that before.

“We put top players out early and then we had to put top players at the end. When we talk about having Love, Mickelson and Woods at the end I liked what we had.

“If there is one player in the world you want finishing last with the Ryder Cup on the line, you want Tiger Woods.”

The Americans still only managed to take three points from the bottom six matches as rookies Price, McGinley, Niclas Fasth and Pierre Fulke all took at least a half from their match.

“The second half was purely inspired by the crowd,” Strange said. “We played pretty well, they played exceptionally well.

“We got beat. The fans were fantastic. The atmosphere was something that we will never forget.”

Paul Azinger, who amazingly holed a bunker shot on the 18th to get an unlikely half and prevent Niclas Fasth from earning the winning point, added: “We all discussed it and we thought throwing out three guys that were hot early and then anchor the team with what we had was a great strategy.”