Hero McDowell was hoping for an easier match (Feature)

By Peter Auf der Heyde Oct 5, 2010, 1:17 GMT

Newport, Wales - European Ryder Cup hero Graeme McDowell, who secured the point his side needed in the final match to win the trophy for the 11th time, admitted that he had planned it differently.

The final match between McDowell and Hunter Mahan proved to be decisive - the first time since 1991 that the competition went down to the final match.

After Mahan failed to find the green on the par-3 17th hole and then blundered his second shot as he again left his ball short of the green before pulling his third shot just wide of the pin, he conceded a 5-foot putt to McDowell for the hole, the match and the game.

But that was not the way things had played out in McDowell's mind before the start of the match.

He said that he had arranged with his caddie that he would tell him what was going on.

'My caddie was going to give me the nod at one point to relax and to know that we had done the job,' McDowell said. 'Obviously I hoped that I wasn't going to be needed. At that point, I got extremely nervous, and, coming down the stretch there, I've never felt nerves like it in my life.

'I got asked earlier to compare the back nine on Sunday at Pebble Beach (where he won the US Open earlier this year) to how I felt out there today, and I can safely say that I've never felt that nervous on a golf course in my life before.

'We said that we weren't going to check out leaderboards, but the screens by every green were quite big, and it was kind of tough to not notice.'

McDowell said that he looked at the scoreboard on the 10th green and realized that his game could be important.

'I saw that things were really, really tight and that chances were that the last matches were going to come into play,' he said.

'That is the most difficult nine holes of golf I've ever played in my life. You know, from the 10th onwards, I realized that my match was going to be hugely important. I found that Rickie Fowler had just halved his match, and a half wasn't good enough in my game anymore, and I was really nervous over every shot.'

Team-mate Lee Westwood, however, said that he believed McDowell had the easier task than he did watching him.

'He had the easy thing, he was playing,' Westwood said, adding that he hated every minute of watching. 'It is just awful, watching. It is much easier playing, because you're in control.

'It is always difficult when it's within grabbing distance, I suppose. But it's just such a fine line, as well, because the blue - a bit like last night - the blue things that were on the board (showing Europe leading), we needed to convert into points.'

'When you're a player, you understand what Graeme is going through, and that's what makes it awful, because you know how nervous he's going to be, yet you can't do anything about it, you can't say anything to him or do anything. So you are really helpless.'

But McDowell again rose to the occasion, just as he did at the US Open at Pebble Beach, and because of that Europe on Monday won the Ryder Cup for the 11th time.

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