An Unforgettable Ryder Cup Victory, Though Some Would Like To MEDINAH, Ill. - Stupendous comeback or stupefying collapse? Surely some potent blend of both was required to produce this latest Ryder Cup suitable for downloading or deleting (you know which camp you are in). In Europe and to a much lesser degree in the United States, they are already calling what happened here "El Milagro de Medinah," or "The Miracle at Medinah." The label is likely to stick. Alliteration is tough to resist, and the term captures the wide-eyed spirit of the European team's Champagne-soaked reaction to its 14 ½ to 13 ½ comeback victory over the United States. It also dovetails with the team's collective sense that some higher force was at work as they played for the memory of the former European star and captain Seve Ballesteros, who died of a brain tumor last year. "Seve, Seve, Seve, Seve, Seve," said European player Justin Rose on the 18th green in the heady, delirious moments after victory. Oh my goodness. Oh my God. I mean we're in shock. We wanted to believe. We really wanted to believe, but we weren't under any illusions about how hard it was going to be. Four points back on a golf course made for them. True enough. But what happened at Medinah was no miracle even if a bit of alchemy was involved. The Europeans, after all, have dominated the modern era of the Ryder Cup and have now won five of the last six competitions and seven of the last nine. This was clearly the most surprising of their many victories as they rallied from a 6-10 deficit on the final day on the road. But it was also the latest example of the Ryder Cup's continuing capacity to transform certain European golfers, for the space of a three-day weekend, into pressure-proof world beaters. Men like Scotland's Colin Montgomerie, never capable of winning a major title, turned into steely-eyed closers with the Cup for inspiration. It happened again in Medinah as Ian Poulter and Rose, neither of whom has won a major championship, produced the kind of brilliance for their team that they have yet to produce on their own. Major winner! Major winner!" was the taunt from the crowd as Poulter came out to play his singles match Sunday against Webb Simpson, the reigning United States Open champion. That might have unsettled more bashful characters, but with Poulter, it was throwing chum in the water. This was the same man who, on Saturday morning, decided to upstage the showboating American Bubba Watson on the first tee by calling for the thousands of fans to cheerwhile he was hitting his tee shot, just as Watson had done the previous morning and was about to do again. Golf may never be quite the same (we'll see about Watson, who lost the opening singles match on Sunday to Luke Donald to start the European train rolling). Rose later holed a 40-foot putt on No. 17 as he rallied to beat Phil Mickelson. Martin Kaymer rolled in the Cup-clinching 5-foot putt to beat Stricker, making it even though he was thinking about the short putt that his fellow German and longtime mentor, Bernhard Langer, missed to lose the 1991 Ryder Cup in the United States. But there can be no doubt that Poulter, a 36-year-old with the working-class English accent and spiky coiffure, was the catalyst in chief. He is based in Florida and, like many of his European teammates, plays much of his golf on the more lucrative PGA Tour in the United States. But he clearly still gets a perpetual thrill out of foiling Americans, including Simpson on Sunday. Poulter won all four of his matches at Medinah, his body quaking and his eyes bulging after birdies to such a degree that one feared he might eventually require medical attention.