Just half a point but Shane Lowry had waited half a lifetime for it
WINNING FEELING: Shane Lowry celebrates making the winning putt to retain the Ryder Cup for Team Europe. Pic: ©INPHO/Matthew Harris
Shane Lowry stood in the middle of the 18th fairway and must have wondered how the hell he was here. Sent out eighth in the Sunday singles with his European team needing just 2.5 points to seal a historic and heavenly road victory, he surely thought the party would be started by the time he got in.
Instead European hopes were barely afloat as the evening gold poured down on the people’s country club. What a show they got on a Sunday unlike any other when Keegan Bradley’s home team conjured the kind of fightback that just doesn’t happen. Unless it’s the Ryder Cup.
In its 45th edition, its uniquely brilliant format served up something unforgettable. And Lowry walked up the 18th to a moment that will live forever. One down to Russell Henley, he arrowed a sparkling iron into six feet then drained the putt that retained the Ryder Cup for Europe. They had fallen on to the line but not yet over it.
It was just half a point but he’s waited half a lifetime for it. Lowry roared wildly, hopped and jumped and reached out for caddie Darren Reynolds for something to hold. You thought the Offaly man might just explode. He had burst one hell of an American dream. What a day. And it still wasn’t over.
How had we got here? Slowly and then in a blur of red, the blue dread rising.
Even with a lead as both cavernous and comfortable as 12-5, even with a US team and fanbase who had been left with almost nothing good to show from first two days, there was still that near certainty of a singles Sunday — the witching hour(ish).
It’s an undefinable, impossible-to-pinpoint moment but one which is as tied to the tradition of this cup as Seve or any of its other sentimentalities. Its arrival is heralded by something like the following words “You know, just maybe if…”
The 2025 is-it-turning point arrived around 2.30pm, the sun at its burning peak and seeming to drain all European energy out of this place. A jutting, jagged collection of 18 holes, Bethpage seemed almost made for its moment. The 13th green is situated just a short hop from the 4th tee. All 11 matches were contained within that collection of holes and the heat in the air was matched a board turning red.
Cam Young was running away from Justin Rose in the opener, 3 up. From there on down, the Americans were up in four more with four all square and just two Europeans ahead, Matt Fitzpatrick 3 up on DeChambeau but leaking oil and Lowry 1up on Henley. For about 30 minutes Lowry’s decisive birdie on the 5th represented the only hole Europe won.
It felt incredibly flat with the McIlroy-Scheffler showdown flattest of all, the world’s No.1 and No.2 serving up a snoozer. McIlroy had gone one down on the 10th and looked empty of energy or anything else. Sapped from a Saturday unlike any other.
With the session’s momentum threatening to shift somewhere horrifying for European eyes and minds, he focused his enough to bury a 30-foot putt and wipe Scheffler’s red off the board. In the space of just five minutes Ludvig Aberg took a lead on Patrick Cantlay and fellow Scandinavian Rasmus Hojgaard dragged Ben Griffin back to all square.
The most unlikely rally looked to be extinguished but it simply refused to be so simple. Even 90 minutes later, the first match now climbing its way up to the final tee box, nothing felt solid. Europe were again up in just two matches, the Americans up in four and the other five stuck in the middle.
Two huge swings had taken place. From 3 down at the 13th, Rose went on the kind of relentless run that he seems to conjure on one Sunday every two years. He birdied three of the next four holes. The first caused a flashpoint. Having sprayed his approach wildly behind a viewing platform, Rose got a drop that Bradley, having sprinted down to investigate, appeared to take issue with. Rose got on with it and hit a barely credible chip in to eight feet and nailed the putt. On a number of occasions this week Lowry has told that he lives for all this. Rose resides right there with him.
The second swing was back America’s way. DeChambeau had done his usual captain America shtick on the opening tee, almost driving the green with a booming swing, only to lose the hole to Fitzpatrick and then fall 5 down by the seventh. By the 17th tee he was now just one back.
The explosions of American hope seemed to be popping out of every corner of the course, the oaks and cedars that have stood sentry around the place for 89 years shaking with each fresh US win.
There was nothing out there that felt defined or secure. Having chopped all of that trademark rough back for just this occasion, Bethpage had become an expanse of unsteady ground. In these circumstances, the importance of the first rock solid, unshakeable point on the board grew to something enormous.
Four hours after this had all began we finally got it. From 11 feet off to the right of the 18th hole, rookie and native New Yorker Young powered home a clincher that ended the Rose revival at the last moment. The second point would go the Americans’ way in almost identical fashion, this time Justin Thomas the one punching his fist in front of the enormous grandstand.
From starting 11-5 down, it was 11-8 when Xander Schauffele took down Jon Rahm on the 15th. The unease that Donald, his team of vice captains and everyone in yellow and blue must have been feeling. Aberg eased nerves just enough with a 2&1 win over Cantlay on the penultimate green moments before DeChambeau and Fitzpatrick split a point evenly on the 18th. It felt a whole lot more like a win to the American.
It pushed Europe one point from falling over the line but where it would or could come from was the question racing down from the 18th green. The query became even more pressing when McIlroy’s soul-sapped Sunday came to its fitting end with a flailing and unsuccessful attempt to rescue a half, Scheffler cutting the gap to four. It was three as Lowry battled down 18 for that half that would at least retain. After him, Hojgaard, Tyrrell Hatton and Bob MacIntyre were the only Europeans standing but none looked particularly steady.
There would, after this extraordinary New York Sunday, be a winner. The cup was coming home to Europe and you’d imagine that pretty soon it will make its way to Clara.
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