Timing – what timing? Brian Rowan on McIlroy’s Ryder Cup entrance

In golf they say that timing is everything and that Rory McIlroy is a picture and a player of rhythmic perfection.

He has a swing and sporting swagger that everyone wants to copy, and, yet at the weekend, we watched him almost get lost in time zone confusion.

It meant a last minute rush to that golfing altar in Chicago on his sport’s biggest day, with everything out-of-sync.

Yet, within minutes, McIlroy had recovered, reset, and rewound back into that place of golfing composure and class.

The Sportswriter James Lawton of The Independent captured the moment in these words: “What no one could have doubted was that Rory McIlroy was indeed a young champion who could make his own rules – and create his own zone of both time and brilliance.”

We all watched him do it his way; in showbiz style on a Sunday stage filled with drama and tension and with a script that had us on the edge of our seats.

I was watching it in the living room with my sons Ruairi and PJ; watching the seemingly unbridgeable gap being closed as Europe point by point pulled Team USA back.

Then, we heard the American crowd go quiet – or quieter.

ITN news presenter Mark Austin tweeted: “Rory should have turned up late everyday”.

McIlroy was part of putting five big points on the European total; in that frontline with Donald, Poulter, Rose and Lawrie.

Clare Balding tweeted: “I love Luke Donald” and we all began to think the unthinkable, believe the unbelievable, and marvel in this moment of Ryder Cup history.

“Sport at its greatest,” the singer songwriter Ben Glover tweeted, on an evening when everyone was watching; watching McIlroy make a mockery of timing and the need for all that build-up practice and preparation.

His point was achieved against Keegan Bradley, a Major Champion last year and one of the giants of a US team that fell on Sunday.

Garcia, Westwood, and Kaymer won their matches and Molinari tied with Woods to produce a final match score of Europe 14.5 USA 13.5.

Dustin Johnson, Zach Johnson and Jason Dufner were the only home team winners on Sunday, as Europe accomplished the most remarkable salvage mission.

On Saturday night with his team trailing by four points, assistant captain Darren Clarke had tweeted: “It can still be done” – and yes it could.

“Told you” was his tweet on Sunday night: two words in a sporting script that had everything and that had all of us watching in disbelief.

McIlroy was in the middle of it, on a day of headlines and headaches, and a day when there may well have been some confusion about the hour but not the player.

This was yet another confirmation of his high place within the game; a day when he got there on time, if only just, and as the clock struck closing time on this showcase event, Europe had done enough.

Team captain Olazabal had hoped the memory of the late Seve Ballesteros would inspire this team; motivate it, tell it not to give up and to think and play positively, and so they did.

“Seve Heaven”, the journalist Ivan Little tweeted late last night, as we all went to bed thinking “Magic McIlroy”.