As a European, I hope Jose Maria Olazabal went to bed Saturday night with the same 'good feeling about this' that Ben Crenshaw felt at Brookline in 1999. Europe trails the US at Medinah by the same four points that Crenshaw's team was behind Mark James’s European dozen 13 years ago. By winning the first six singles matches that fateful day, however, and eight and half points in total, the Americans turned a likely defeat into the most amazing comeback the tournament has seen.
And if it weren't for Ian Poulter, today's predicament could have been a lot worse for Europe. Poulter, as he so often does at the Ryder Cup, summoned up the passion and inspiration that seemed to be lacking among his teammates who were obviously stunned by their opponents’ superb play, and putting in particular. Poulter, partnered by Rory McIlroy in the last fourball of the afternoon, refused to have his perfect record soiled and, by birdieing the final five holes, scraped a 1up victory over Jason Dufner and Zach Johnson that gave him a 3-0-0  tally going into the singles.
As Colin Montgomerie said on the Golf Channel Saturday evening, every one of the 12 Europeans are capable of beating any of the 12 Americans on their day. But the likelihood of that happening on Sunday is, of course, rather remote. If they do pull it off, it will be even more impressive than the US's comeback in '99 because three of the Europeans hadn't played a single match before the Sunday singles that year. You'd hardly say it was expected, but Mark James was kind of asking for trouble. This US team has seven major winners and is loaded with top-20 players. Indeed, only Jim Furyk is outside the world top 20, at 23. And they have all played at least twice so far this week.
Olazabal will need his top guns to play better than they have thus far and his lesser lights to overcome any inferiority complex they may have and make a name for themselves. The US needs just four and a half points to claim its second Ryder Cup victory of the century. It obviously has the players to do it. The Sunday line-up promises a number of utterly intriguing head-to-head encounters. As you’ll see from my predictions, I’m not anticipating a happy day for Europe.