On this day in 2008: Ryder Cup misery in Louisville for Nick Faldo’s Europe team

The Ryder Cup returned to American fingers in Muhammad Ali’s residence city of Louisville as Europe captain Nick Faldo’s plan to “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee” went up in smoke.

Trailing by two factors getting into the 12 closing singles at Valhalla, Faldo went with sting in his tail, placing Padraig Harrington out final regardless of the hazard of the Open and PGA champion’s conflict with Chad Campbell changing into irrelevant.

So it proved, and the ultimate scoreline was a convincing 16 1/2-11 1/2 triumph to the USA.

We'd like your consent to load this Social Media content material

We use quite a few completely different Social Media shops to handle additional content material that may set cookies in your gadget and acquire knowledge about your exercise. Please evaluate their particulars and settle for them to load the content material.

Paul Azinger’s aspect, ending a run of three successive defeats, clinched victory with 4 video games – these involving not simply Harrington, but additionally star-of-the-week Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood and Graeme McDowell – nonetheless out on the course.

With the wind taken out of their sails, Poulter managed to make it 4 wins out of 5 to be the week’s prime scorer and debutant McDowell received as properly, however Westwood and Harrington misplaced and so ended the occasion with out a victory between them.

For Harrington, a mere half-point to his title was the identical story as at The Okay Membership two years earlier. His two main wins made it a unbelievable 2008, in fact, however so far as the Ryder Cup was involved he had peaked too quickly.

As for Westwood, he completed with an assault on the Kentucky crowds.

I've been abused from begin to end, and I do not assume that is golfLee Westwood

“Among the stuff that has been mentioned to me has been shameful,” Westwood mentioned. “I've been abused from begin to end, and I don’t assume that’s golf.”

Faldo mentioned his singles order was a workforce choice, nevertheless it was solely six years earlier that Curtis Unusual despatched Tiger Woods out twelfth at The Belfry and that didn't matter both.

Azinger mentioned: “We simply had a plan and caught to it. We created a thirteenth man with the group, they usually had been superbly behaved.

“The fellows had an ‘all the things to achieve’ angle, they usually got here collectively as a bunch. Ultimately it comes all the way down to placing and coronary heart, and our guys had quite a lot of coronary heart.”