'I feel like play-offs in golf are a bit like tie breaks in tennis. It's really about who blinks first'

Luke Donald’s gathering of 10 of his 12-player team on the entry list offers an early opportunity for some serious team bonding.

PATIENCE: Rory McIlroy had to be patient during his play-off to claim the Amgen Irish Open. Pic: ©INPHO/Bryan Keane

It was not just the tens of thousands of Irish golf fans at The K Club on Sunday afternoon who will have been cheered by Rory McIlroy’s fighting spirit to come from behind and claim the Amgen Irish Open in a sudden-death play-off.

With a Ryder Cup now just three weeks away, McIlroy’s tour de force in his national Open was a piece of immaculate timing. The five-time major champion’s draining of a series of clutch distance putts in regulation and taking Sweden’ s Joakim Lagergren into extra holes with a nerveless 27-foot eagle putt, was a welcome boost for European captain Luke Donald ahead of the team’s departure for New York and the short trip out along the Long Island Expressway to Bethpage Black.