A time of change

The Ryder Cup has an uncanny knack of throwing up an unlikely hero or two. Despite the best judgment, calculations and guess work of any captain it often boils down to a player of lesser note, than say a Seve Ballesteros or Nick Faldo, to determine which side of the Atlantic the famous trophy is going to end up.

And this, in part, is what makes the biennial matches so special. We all love to cheer on an underdog, who has played little part or no part over the first two days but is then shoved into the spotlight, and this was the case 20 years ago when Europe defended their title for the first time since 1959.

Eamonn Darcy came to Dublin, Ohio, with the unenviable record of two halves and seven defeats from nine outings in three trouncings by the United States. His last appearance had come at Walton Heath in 1981, when probably the best American side ever had wiped the floor with the home side, but Darcy was back in the European ranks after playing his way on to the team - Jose Maria Olazabal, Sandy Lyle and Ken Brown having to rely on a pick from skipper Tony Jacklin.

As well as a winless record Darcy also had to deal with the jibes about his unorthodox swing, but it is numbers not pictures that count, and he was more than ready for a few clever comments from the hosts.

"Absolutely, I got stick for 30 years about my swing but watching the clips of the match Peter Alliss was very complimentary about it. I did my own bit at the beginning but the impact position is the important bit. They don't talk about swings so much these days - look at Jim Furyk, the number three player in the world, he flips it outside and loops it back in with a high right elbow and he's not bad."

Darcy spent the first day and a half on the sidelines, watching the visitors whitewash Jack Nicklaus' men for the first time ever in the afternoon fourballs, and then extend the advantage on Saturday morning with Ballesteros and Olazabal, Ian Woosnam and Faldo and Lyle and Bernhard Langer combining to brilliant effect.

"The top players all played well, fantastic. Nobody really minded not playing if things were going well, if there were points on the board it didn't matter who was getting them. We were all part of the same team."

Ireland's sole representative finally got his chance in the Saturday fourballs alongside Gordon Brand Jr but were met by a  resurgent Andy Bean and Payne Stewart.

"We played ok but their boys were 11-under for 16 holes. We just hit a brick wall which can happen and we were always on the back foot. We looked like we could have got a dog's licence (7 and 6) but I made a few birdies near the end and took them to the 16th which was respectable but we were never in the game."

A Ryder Cup victory still eluded Darcy but Jacklin's deadly dozen consolidated their five-point lead when Lyle and Langer produced yet more heroics at the 18th as the light began to fade.

"The Americans hit a good shot, Lyle hit a fantastic shot, then Langer came in and stiffed it. You couldn't really write the script for that week."

And so to the singles. What lay in wait for Europe was a first ever win on American soil, for the Americans the ignominy of defeat and on Nicklaus' magnum opus of Muirfield Village. There was a big shift in atmosphere on the Sunday and Darcy was sent out eighth, in between Lyle and Langer, and against Ben Crenshaw, who had recorded top-10 finishes in all four of the Majors that year but had played two, lost two over the first two days.

Darcy added: "They went overboard, the usual American stuff. Hal Sutton got everyone going saying there wasn't enough cheering for the Americans so they started giving out flags on the final day. I was out there to just try and play well, on the first Crenshaw holed from 25 feet. As we walked off to the 2nd tee there was a little passageway and there was a guy there who had to be 25 stone and he was screaming and frothing from the mouth 'Kill them Ben, kill them, no prisoners today'. I thought this should be good."

Thankfully for Europe it was good. Darcy shot the lowest front nine of the week, a four-under 32 (Seve would also go on to do the same), to go three up and he was also now facing an opponent who was missing his putter. In a fit of rage the 1984 Masters champion, and probably the best putter in the world, had banged his club on to the acorn-strewn ground coming off the 6th green. These were the days of the one-iron so the American was forced to use that and the blade of his sand wedge, though Darcy was unaware of what had gone on.

"I never knew he had broken his putter, I was so engrossed in my own game. I figured he had a reason for not using it, he missed a couple early on, but I wasn't really interested in what he was doing. Somebody told me afterwards that he had hit it and the head had fallen off it, Jack wasn't too happy needles to say."

Yet despite having to make do without his most lethal weapon Crenshaw closed the gap as the rest of his team-mates ate into Europe's overnight lead. Woosnam, Faldo, Olazabal and Lyle, all heroes over the first two days, went down as five of the first seven matches went the way of the hosts and had it not been for a last-hole triumph for Howard Clark and a battling half from Torrance it would have been even worse.

Darcy's match was always likely to be important, now it was absolutely crucial.

The County Wicklow man hit one of the shots of the week at the penultimate hole, a six-iron over trees to two-and-a-half feet, and reached the last tee all square.

"I was aware of what was happening standing on the 18th tee. I looked at the scoreboard and it had gone totally pear-shaped, we looked like we couldn't lose for two days, now it seemed we were going to lose.

Crenshaw went left off the tee into a little stream, Darcy found the fairway.

"With my second I hit the top of the bunker and it finished under the lip. I really wanted to leave it under the hole but I had to get it out and it ended where I didn't want to be, past the hole. The green was grease lightning."

Crenshaw was 12 feet away in four but somehow coaxed the putt in, this time with the one-iron, to leave Darcy with a downhill four-footer for a four and the match. He barely touched it, the line was perfect and it disappeared to European roars and stunned silence from the American galleries. Captain Jacklin was soon on hand to give his man a hug and the visitors moved to within a point of making history.

As was fitting for the week Seve put the finishing touches to the historic triumph but Darcy's point was the key moment on that memorable final day.

"It was was incredible when you think about it. Had it missed it would have gone 15 feet by, it really was like polished marble. Jack put his arm around me, I have some photos of it and he singled me out in his speech, which was very nice of him. He said I put the final nail in the coffin for them. He designed the course and he knew how important that putt was - I was in three-putt range from four feet and Seve said afterwards 'I didn't hole the winning putt, Darcy did'."

The jinx had been broken. It took 60 years and 14 visits to the States but, finally, the visitors would return home with the trophy. Olazabal, playing his first match at just 21 years of age, performed a memorable jig on the final green and Darcy also left his mark on the celebrations.

"We had a big party and I sang a couple of songs in front of a few hundred people. All the supporters came along afterwards, it was a great week. The Americans weren't too happy, we had police escorts to the airport and we couldn't even get breakfast which tells a story.

"It took a while but it was worth all the heartaches I've had in Ryder Cups, for that one moment."