RYDER CUP: They threw him in the lake to see if he would walk or sink. To their surprise he sank. Just one miracle a day from Paul McGinley.

He is 35-years-old and this morning McGinley begins the second half of his life, the half which came after he won The Ryder Cup. A journeyman by virtue of temperament rather than talent, McGinley finally burned his name into golf history yesterday when he trickled a putt across 10 feet of treacherous green.

There are curious patches of stillness amidst the excitement of a last day at the Ryder Cup. Paul McGinley drops a putt and the place goes delirious, then takes pause. What does it mean? Paul Azinger chips in from somewhere in New Jersey. More cheering. Another silence. What did that mean? All the silences and all the babel weave together to make one moment.

It could scarcely be scripted, planning indeed would soil it, but these matches come down in the end to what golf is supposed to be about. One man alone with his fears. One figure conquering an essentially unconquerable game. Finally yesterday, as the clock headed towards five, only three games were alive. McGinley versus Furyk. Fulke versus Love. Woods versus Parnevik. All level. Europe needed half a point. America needed all three. The wheat and the chaff had been separated.

The early scores came in yesterday like stock returns. As they did so the galleries tried to work out which pairing if any would conjure up the winning shot. As spectator sport it's very fine. For players it's the equivalent of Russian roulette. Europe, making a gamble which paid off richly, won four of the six opening matches yesterday and attention shifted down the dancecard. The money shot was going to one of the lesser European lights.

That it should come to Paul McGinley was fitting and ironic. He needed to pass a test like this. The rap on McGinley has always been that he is too soft to fully accommodate his talent. Not soft maybe, but too congenial, too happy with his life in Sunningdale where he lives in some comfort near a clutch of other professional golfers, including Ryder Cup colleagues Colin Montgomerie and Darren Clarke. Too many good corporate days they say, too many good finishes, too much of everything except hunger. A guy who acts like he has life by the tail.

On the European Ryder Cup team this week they had a little saying. "To do a McGinley" was to outsmart oneself. Somehow it fitted. If McGinley hadn't been made a Dub he'd have been a cockney. Almost immediately after his moment of triumph yesterday he was interviewed by American TV. From the media din he was able to separate one market from another, one audience from another. "Can I say hello to everyone in San Diego," he said cooly as the interview was finishing.

Congenial and market friendly. Doing a McGinley.

When he made the Ryder Cup team last year after a fine season of golf one assumed that the event would either make or break him. On the day the Ryder Cup of 2001 was due to start he drove to the The Belfry to walk around among the empty grandstands and wonder. Paul McGinley and pressure would become acquainted like never before. He's a peculiar animal. A former Gaelic football star with Ballyboden St Enda's (who also provided Padraig Harrington to yesterday's team) he was a golf scholarship winner to the University of San Diego. He joined the Tour 11 years ago exuding great promise but never quite fulfilling it.

This summer he has been agony to watch. One feared that he was becoming one of the lesser victims of September 11th. Had the 34th Ryder Cup been played on schedule a year ago it would have found McGinley at the end of a fine if slightly waning season. This year he has struggled to find his form and there was a fear that the weekend just past could have crushed him. Instead he is one of golf's made guys, the hero of the summer.

And it was tough. The pressure, the closing in off the focus till it all seemed laser-focused on his 5ft 7in frame. For the rest of his life, Paul McGinley will find himself telling people about "the shot", but he won't have a better set-up man than Padraig Harrington.

"Lads, it was crucial," said Harrington. "It was so crucial. It had turned against us when Azinger had that bunker shot that went in. The gut feeling about the place changed. Lee Westwood said to me, it's always the Irish that hole the winning putt and that cheered me up but at that stage it was not good. As Paul McGinley stood over that putt the USA team had the best chance they'd had for any time in the previous two hours.

So it was. McGinley had breakfasted that morning with his fellow rookies on the European team and in the general jubilation at Sam Torrance's frontloading gamble it had dawned on them that the responsibility for closing the deal was going to fall to one of the men at that table. Niclas Fasth. McGinley. Pierre Fulke or Phillip Price. Over the cornflakes it was quite a thought. What the hell had Sam Torrance done?

McGinley was playing with Jim Furyk for the third time in the week. Furyk, unfamiliar with the Irishman, said afterwards that he felt he had made a friend of McGinley during the week. McGinley, having lost one and halved one already, probably felt that Furyk was a contract and ripe for being a victim.

He kept smiling as the American with the whacky swing took birdies at the second and third to go two holes up. McGinley kept playing steady, hitting pars. Furyk was all over the place.

Another birdie, a bogey and a double birdie before the turn.

McGinley pulled one back on the 10th and halved the 11th. Coming off the green there, he received a piece of advice which would have baffled his opponent.

"Somebody shouted form the crowd as I was coming down from the 11th hole: 'Hey Paul, remember Armagh last Sunday?' It drew something from me. I remembered it." So he hung in there. Two behind again on 12. One behind on 13. Pumping the crowd all the time. They'd deserted Harrington by now, knowing that McGinley was where the action was at. He played them with Tiger like fist pumpings, drawing strength from it all himself.

"It was like playing in the middle of Ireland," he said afterwards. Up the 18th and you want pressure? You want pressure and you want it distilled and put into a canister and given to you to handle.

Here it is. Here's how he played it. A 15-footer on the 17th for birdie. Just to get everything simmering and then onwards.

"I holed on 17 and the cheer went up. Coming up to 18, I saw Darren and Padraig and a few others. You can tell when everyone is watching your game that it's coming down to you. I didn't want to see the scoreboards. I knew for sure when I got to the green and Sam said 'do it for me.' I knew then it wasn't won and it was down to this."

So it's somewhere between eight foot and 10 feet and the greens haven't been playing so perfectly today. People have been treading and celebrating on the 18th and it turns out they've been treading on your dream.

All the questions hang over your head now. How much does McGinley want it? What has he got when the pressure is on? Is he one for the big time? There's 10 feet of truth in front of you.

"I knew the line, it was a matter of hitting it on the line. Standing over the putt I knew, I knew what was at stake. It wasn't a mixture of nerves or fear It was excitement, adrenalin, focus, all those things combined. This is my chance. This is my opportunity. I relished those things. I enjoyed it."

One answer. Yes he wants it. Yes he has it. Yes. Latest in a long line of Irish players to do the hard stuff when the Ryder Cup is on the line.

"It's unbelievable. To do what the three boys have done. To do what they've done. I know now how theyfeel."

Maybe not. None of them got chucked in the lake while gripping the tricolour. None of them became a byword for cartoonish manouvrings. None of them quite got to the heart of the matter like McGinley did this week. "From the shadows," said Sam Torrance, "come heroes."

Paul McGinley just grinned. He always knew this day would come. Some people are born to be big time.