Europe hold two point lead after Friday’s Ryder Cup action

Thanks to a double from an inspired Sergio Garcia – one of them over Tiger Woods -- and a contribution from every other member of the team Europe have already taken a big stride towards an unprecedented third successive Ryder Cup victory.

The first staging of the contest on Irish soil is already proving a thriller, with seven of the first eight games coming to the K Club’s final green.

But the Americans won only one of them and Ian Woosnam’s side have built a 5-3 overnight advantage – the fifth match in a row they have led after the first day.

How much of a lead they would have was decided only with the very last putt of the day and it fell to Colin Montgomerie, the man who took them to victory two years ago, to make it.

The 43-year-old’s five-footer gave himself and Lee Westwood – a partnership nobody would have predicted – a half with Phil Mickelson and Chris DiMarco.

It meant that three of the afternoon foursomes had been shared and the other had been won and the fact that the victory was by Garcia and Luke Donald over Woods and Jim Furyk is what gives the home side the biggest lift going into the second day.

“I’m so happy for the boys – every single one of them played brilliant,” said Woosnam, who has already got everybody involved while Tom Lehman omitted Scott Verplank and Vaughn Taylor from both sessions.

Montgomerie, winning his eighth cap, added: “That’s a good day – we would have taken that before the start. We never lost a game this afternoon and that’s very important.”

Lehman commented: “It was a bit of a tough finish and it stings a little bit.

“Great matches, very exciting, but we could have used a little bit more luck on the greens. We played with a lot of heart, but the Europeans made a lot more putts.

“Still, 5-3 is anybody’s ball-game. But we’re just a little bit frustrated.”

Garcia and Jose Maria Olazabal had already claimed the scalps of David Toms and Brett Wetterich in the fourballs and, by getting the best of the United States’ top duo as well, Garcia has now lost just two of 17 games in his cup career.

At 6pm the outcome of the day’s play was still totally in the balance.

Paul McGinley and Padraig Harrington were one up with one to play and the other three games were all square.

There was a lift for the Americans when Harrington drove into the rough by a bunker down the 537-yard last and then pitched over the green.

McGinley chipped close, but their opponents were on in two and Johnson, with a three-footer, brought his side an invaluable half as heavy rain returned. He and Campbell, two down after 15, had birdied the last three holes.

Garcia and Donald were level with two to go, but Garcia, having hit a brilliant pitch as the 16th was halved in birdies, did it again on the next.

That is the hole where Thomas Bjorn took 11 when leading the European Open last year, but Donald holed from three feet for a three and then came perhaps the biggest shock of the day.

Off a huge Woods drive Furyk hooked terribly into the lake and even with Garcia playing a poor third from the edge of the water the American stars finished with a six – their third of the round.

In the third game Howell and Stenson, both left out of the morning action like Donald and McGinley, twice led by one, but Howell’s carved drive into the lake on the 15th brought them back to level.

Again both sides birdied the 16th and after pars on the next it came down to two putt, Toms from 25 feet and Howell from 22. The American lipped out and, from a similar line, Howell agonisingly just missed as well.

Then came Montgomerie and Westwood to take the final hole and grab a half in the gathering gloom.