When it was all over and the pleasantries — ha! — had been exchanged, Rory McIlroy collapsed into Shane Lowry’s chest. Spent. Physically, mentally, emotionally, whatever else you’re having. Just entirely spent.
His teammate’s chest would surely have been tender, having been thumped black and blue on every hole the Irish duo won in a wild afternoon foursomes match that will go down in the annals of this cup, which holds history and heritage as closely as McIlroy clung to Lowry on the 18th green of Bethpage Black.
WHAT A POINT 🤩#TeamEurope | #OurTimeOurPlace pic.twitter.com/g60DeynGqz
— Ryder Cup Europe (@RyderCupEurope) September 27, 2025
Justin Thomas was a ferocious and fitting foil down the stretch, when the Saturday afternoon contest shifted from a compelling cracker of a thing into something else entirely. It became an operatic classic, sordid then soaring. Cam Young was the fourth actor out there but his role in things was limited as it reached its crescendo from the 14th to the final green.
The simple basics of it: McIlroy and Lowry won 2-up, putting a ravenous, brilliant Europe into double figures. In the process they won their first full point as a Ryder Cup combination. It was one of three in the afternoon session of day two on Long Island as Luke Donald’s team ran up a seven-point lead, 11.5 to 4.5 going into Sunday. It was the largest European advantage for nearly half a century. Fine.
But there was nothing basic or simple about this Irish triumph. The layers of character and grit and stones exhibited by the teammates left us with something we’ll be digging into and sifting through for as long as we want. Which should be forever. What a gift of a thing it was to witness.
Perhaps there was, in fact, something simple about it though? The American simpletons who berated and abused the duo by their hundreds and maybe thousands as a febrile atmosphere turned into a near-perfect distillation of the Trumpian homeland of 2025. Boorish and brainless yet filled with blind bravado, the loudest in the galleries decided their home team wasn’t worth cheering for and so they emptied their lungs abusing the visitors. It was beyond shameful.
When he’d lifted himself out of Lowry’s embrace and handled some post-round duties, McIlroy found his wife Erica behind the 18th and she cried. Both players’ wives had followed the match through the worst of the onslaught but around the turn headed back to the clubhouse. If they simply couldn’t face any more then they’d have been more than forgiven. They’d faced a gauntlet of jeers and barbs, as ugly as they were infantile, which reached their nadir around the sixth and seventh.
FAMILY STRENGTH: The partners of, from left, Rory McIlroy, Erica Stoll McIlroy, Luke Donald, Diane Antonopoulos, and Shane Lowry, Wendy Lowry, watch on during the afternoon fourballs on day two of the 2025 Ryder Cup at Black Course at Bethpage State Park Golf Course in Farmingdale, New York, USA. Photo by Vaughn Ridley/Sportsfile
On what was surely the finest performance of his Ryder Cup career, Lowry was the ultimate teammate in every which way. He did his best to shield McIlroy from as much of the worst of it as he could, pressuring marshals and security staff to step in and do something.
Belatedly they did. One of the many moments which will linger in the memory arrived when organisers took over all of the scoreboard screens with a ‘Spectator Etiquette’ bulletin, with an all caps ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY warning. The home fans, who should have been glad the near-permanently blue scoreboards had disappeared for a while, instead booed this update.
They’d booed and jeered McIlroy from first light, “F*** you Rory!” the only chant the grandstand had managed to sing in unison as the morning foursomes were sent off. But he said he was ready for it. It was the bellowing interruptions when he was addressing his ball or about to swing which irked him enough to tell one chirper to “shut the f*** up” on the 15th before he arrowed in an iron to help win his morning match.
In the afternoon air, though, things had descended to a point where he and Lowry called for that intervention. When the Offaly man buried a brilliant eagle putt on the 4th to take a first lead in the match he had fought fire with fire and berated an abusive fan. In one way, Lowry was revelling in it. With barbs about his weight, his sexual preferences, his homeland and anything else they could think of raining down, he won the next hole with a birdie and roared again. They were 2-up, putting yet more blue on those boards, and somehow thriving in the tempest. On the 6th things reached a head when McIlroy told the referee he wouldn’t putt until there was something approaching silence. To his credit, Thomas begged his countrymen for decency.
It was inevitable that all of this would catch up with McIlroy and Lowry. The emotional energy required to persevere through one or two holes of this, with so much on the line, is enormous. But 18?
They hit a lull that arguably stretched from the 7th to the 13th, Young finding one monster putt to get the US within striking distance and Thomas finding his groove with a winning birdie to level the match at the 9th. But they never cracked enough to find themselves behind.
One of the ironies of it all was that as the contest rose into the echelons, the abuse and nuisance mostly subsided. After both teams had scuffled on the long 13th, Thomas laced a gorgeous iron into six feet at the short 14th. McIlroy almost matched it, stitching his to nine feet. The Holywood man would make his putt while Thomas inexplicably missed. The 14th green had again been a happy hunting ground for McIlroy and Lowry.
On the 15th, the tension almost a tangible, physical thing out there, McIlroy was wayward off the tee but conjured a magical escape, wrapping an iron around a tree and commanding it in to less than six feet. It was an Augusta-level of absurdly good. Thomas would hole another huge putt, from 16 feet back to have the American hordes roaring again. But with the honour from nine feet, Lowry holed his tying birdie three and powered a clenched fist almost clean through his own chest.
Over and back they continued, Young briefly stepping back in to find a long birdie putt on the 16th which McIlroy was able to match thanks to his breathtaking approach. From 164 yards back on the fringes of the fairway he’d stitched it in to five feet. Another hole halved in brilliance.
Behind them, an epic Ryder Cup Saturday was trying — and succeeding — to match the fever pitch. Back on the 16th tee box, the caddies of Bryson DeChambeau and Tommy Fleetwood were in a shouting match. There’d been a near shemozzle too. Two more matches would swing this way and that but it was almost impossible to take the eyes off Lowry and McIlroy.
On the penultimate 17th, a splendid amphitheatre of a par 3, Lowry reached deep within himself and found there was still more in there. A sumptuous iron shot left him just five feet to traverse. Thomas, fighting for something, anything remotely positive from another day of American infamy, went closer still. Thirteen inches according to the shot tracker. When they reached the green, Lowry picked up Thomas’s ball and, McIlroy’s longer birdie effort having slipped by, stepped up, composed himself and sent his home. This time his clenched fist was merely raised in the direction of the stands and pumped slowly. Just for emphasis.
Having dragged themselves through 17 rivers of shit, Bethpage still had one more for Lowry and McIlroy. Climbing the hill from up to 18 with them, there was a thought that all of this deserved a crowning finishing moment. It didn’t quite arrive. Instead, another jaw-dropping Lowry iron was the decisive blow on the final hole, this one again into just five feet. Neither American threatened the pin and so, it all ended with a concession, Thomas and Young taking off their hats and reaching out to shake the hands that beat them, Lowry and McIlroy finding birdies on each of the final five holes. After the politeness came that big, long bear hug and a little more reflection.
A day we won’t forget 🇪🇺#RyderCup pic.twitter.com/ElqzOLrMSX
— Shane Lowry (@ShaneLowryGolf) September 27, 2025
“I’m so proud of this guy. He was there for me all day,” said McIlroy. “I’m drained to say the least and he dug in big time. The credit goes to this man today.”
“It was intense, like something I’ve never experienced,” Lowry exhaled. “But this is what I live for.”
As the duo were being interviewed, there was commotion in the grandstand behind them as a brawl broke out and a New York state trooper tried to hurdle in to intervene. It could have been a fitting footnote to it all but it wasn’t because McIlroy and Lowry carried on regardless. On this day of days, there was no chaos they couldn’t rise above.
