A Singularly Strange Defeat for United States : Ryder Cup: Trailing, 9-7, Europe wins seven of 12 singles matches to take the trophy across the Atlantic. Faldo, Walton victories are key.

It’s 19 inches tall, it’s gold-plated, and it’s going back to Europe.

That would be the Ryder Cup, the biennial, bi-continental symbol of golf supremacy, which, for at least the next two years, isn’t going to be located in the United States.

For only the second time since the competition began in 1927, the United States lost the Ryder Cup on its home soil, the end arriving the moment the ball putted by Ireland’s Philip Walton came to a stop about six inches past the cup on the 18th hole Sunday at Oak Hill.

“My legs were shaking,” Walton said. “They felt like someone else’s.”

The United States conceded the putt to Walton and with it the Ryder Cup to Europe, which won seven of the 12 singles matches to come from behind on the last day and shock the favored Americans, 14 1/2 to 13 1/2.

“I’m glad it’s my turn to win,” said Bernard Gallacher, captain of the European team. “I’m glad it’s this team’s turn to win.”

Unexpectedly, it was the U.S. team’s turn to lose.

“It’s not fun,” said Lanny Wadkins, the American captain.

No, there’s nothing like watching a team supposedly head and shoulders above Europe in the talent pool sink like a range ball in a lake to make Wadkins feel that way.

Anyway, if you can’t have a momentous victory, you might as well have a historic defeat, and that’s what this one was. The United States has lost the Ryder Cup on its home soil only once before, in 1987 at Muirfield Village in Dublin, Ohio.

It was also a crushing defeat, particularly for Curtis Strange, who began the day with high hopes and ended feeling as if somebody had dropped a building on him.

Strange, a controversial captain’s choice by Wadkins, bogeyed the last two holes, turning a one-hole lead over Nick Faldo into a 1-up defeat in the most critical match of the day.

With the score tied at 12 1/2 and Walton on the verge of closing out a victory over Jay Haas, Strange needed to do no worse than halve the match for the United States to have a chance.

But Strange twice pushed his second shots to the right, missed both greens and missed both par putts. What he found was a lot of pain.

When Walton won to clinch it, setting off a greenside champagne-spraying celebration, it also left Strange to consider his fate.

He blamed his swing, which he said simply melted under the Ryder Cup pressure, as suffocating as any in golf.

“It’s the same swing problems I’ve been fighting for three years, and I don’t know how much longer I’m going to fight it,” Strange said.

“It’s a frightening thought to know what I’m going to feel like tomorrow when I wake up and know I let down 11 guys and know we didn’t win because I didn’t play very well.

“There is no fooling, there are no excuses. You keep on plugging away and plugging away, you hope it doesn’t fall apart.”

Still, Strange’s defeat was worth only one point. The U.S. team led, 9-7, at the start of the day, but won only four matches, one of them Phil Mickelson’s 2-and-1 victory over Per-Ulrik Johansson when the outcome already had been decided.

The bright spots for the United States were as limited as hats and T-shirts in the sold-out merchandise tent.

Tom Lehman defeated Seve Ballesteros, 4 and 3, Davis Love III defeated Costantino Rocca, 3 and 2, and Corey Pavin defeated Bernhard Langer, 3 and 2. Fred Couples birdied No. 17 and rolled in a four-footer for par on the 18th to halve his match with Ian Woosnam.

Other than that, it was not a great day for the U.S. players.

Five matches went to the 18th hole and the United States won none of them.

The margin of Howard Clark’s 1-up victory over Peter Jacobsen was Clark’s hole-in-one on the 176-yard 11th. Jeff Maggert was routed by Mark James, who was 1-4-1 in Ryder Cup singles matches. Brad Faxon missed the green on No. 18, then missed a five-foot par putt to allow David Gilford to escape with a 1-up victory despite a bogey finish at the 18th.

Masters champion Ben Crenshaw was no match for Colin Montgomerie and lost, 3 and 1, to stay winless in three days. Crenshaw and Strange were the only players on either side who finished without a point.

Crenshaw, 43, and Strange, 40, are also the only two players from the other U.S. team to lose the Ryder Cup at home, the 1987 team that had Jack Nicklaus as captain.

As for the current captain, Wadkins saw no reason for apologies.

“It’s not fun,” Wadkins said. “They’re going to hold their heads high, and we’re going to get through this. I had some guys who didn’t play as well as I thought they’d play today. So it happens. That’s just golf. Sometimes you just have to hand it to the guys who win.”

Late in the day, the U.S. team had a tiny chance to salvage the cup. Haas was three down to Walton with three holes to play, but holed out a bunker shot at No. 16, then won No. 17 when Walton missed a five-foot par putt that would have clinched the trophy.

Haas had to win a third consecutive hole to halve the match. Coupled with Mickelson’s expected victory, the United States would finish in a 14-14 tie and retain the cup.

But Haas drove his tee shot left into the woods on 18 and the United States had run out of chances.

When it was over, Wadkins began to break down at the awards ceremony, but Gallacher went to the podium to console him. As for Strange, he was suffering alone with his thoughts.

There were many who thought Wadkins had made a poor choice with his captain’s selection of Strange, who had not won a tournament in six years, since the 1989 U.S. Open at Oak Hill. Lee Janzen was widely regarded as a better choice for the Ryder Cup.

Strange knew what finishing bogey, bogey, bogey on the last day of Ryder Cup could mean to him.

“I probably deserve whatever I get in the press,” Strange said. “But it doesn’t matter because it probably doesn’t compare with how I’m gonna beat myself up.”

Maybe in 1997 at Sotogrande, Spain, at the next Ryder Cup, Strange will get another chance. Probably not, though. In any event, chances are Strange is going to be thinking about how he played the 18th hole Sunday for quite a while.

“If I make four, we probably win the Ryder Cup,” he said.

Someone asked him if he really would be hard on himself.

“Oh, sure,” said Strange. “And for a long time.”