With dramatic finish, Europeans hold on to win Ryder Cup

The European Ryder Cup team needed to win 14½ points to keep the famous trophy on this side of the Pond, and so it did.

On the first-ever Monday finish in the 83-year history of the event, with an American team battling hard from an almost impossible 9½-6½ deficit, the result came down to the final dramatic pairing of Graeme McDowell and Hunter Mahan.

McDowell, the Northern Ireland golfer who emerged from obscurity by winning the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach last June and now has edged toward superstar status, led Mahan from the start and made an incredible, slick downhill putt at the 16^th hole that finally put the favored Europeans on the brink of where they had expected to be all along.

But that wasn’t the end of the match. It had gotten McDowell back to two-up, with two holes to play. But with the 22 other singles players finished and the score tied at 13½-13½, Mahan had a chance to retain the Cup for the U.S. by winning the last two holes. A halved match and 14 points was all the team that held the Cup needed to go home with it.

The more than 35,000 people who had turned out one more day for this rain-delayed competition on the Celtic Manor Resort’s Twenty Ten course, all funneled to the last two holes. The tension was indescribable.

McDowell hit his tee shot on the par-three 17^th about hole-high and just on the fringe of the green. Mahan hit his 30 yards short, in the short fairway grass in front.

Then, the incredible happened, as it often does in this event.

Mahan, playing first and needing to chip it in to stay alive in the match, or at least very close in case McDowell three-putted, hit the kind of shot you see at every public golf course every 10 minutes of every day. He chunked it about 10 yards.

Now, his only long-shot chance was to make his remaining long putt for a three and hope that McDowell still three-putted. But when Mahan’s ball turned right just at the hole, it was over. Mahan walked up, conceded the match and shook McDowell’s hand.

The European team of Captain Colin Montgomerie had won, barely edging out Corey Pavin’s Team USA.

That triggered a celebration that may go on for a week. Fans swarmed the fairways and greens and the European players and, eventually working their way to the resort balcony, sprayed them with champagne and tossed them shirts and caps and memorabilia.

The U.S. team, which had turned in a dreadful performance in team play Sunday, losing all but one-half of a possible six points, played valiantly in the singles, winning six matches and getting half-points in two more.

The U.S. stars were Tiger Woods, who played some of the best golf of his season. He beat Edoardo Molinari, 4 and 3, by making five birdies and an eagle in his last seven holes.

Phil Mickelson, No. 2 in world rankings behind Woods, but suffering through yet another mediocre Ryder Cup in his eighth appearance, also played well, winning over Peter Hanson, 4 and 2.

The No. 1 match of the day pitted Steve Stricker of the U.S. against Lee Westwood, and Stricker continued his amazingly consistent performance, beating the European veteran, 2 and 1, with yet another putting exhibition.

The U.S. lead in the Ryder Cup competition, which began in 1927, is now 25-11-2. Next up will be the 2012 matches at Medinah Country Club near Chicago.

bill.dwyre@latimes.com