Trailing by two points entering the 12 closing singles at Valhalla, Faldo went for a sting in his tail, putting Padraig Harrington out last despite the danger of the Open and PGA champion's clash with Chad Campbell becoming irrelevant.

So it proved and the final scoreline was a resounding 16.5-11.5 to the US.

Paul Azinger's side, ending a run of three successive defeats, clinched victory with Harrington, star-of-the-week Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood and Graeme McDowell still out on the course.

With the wind taken out of their sails Poulter managed to make it four wins out of five to be the top scorer and debutant McDowell won as well, but Westwood and Harrington lost and so ended the event without a win between them.

Faldo said his singles order was a team decision, but it was only six years ago that Curtis Strange sent Tiger Woods out 12th at The Belfry and that did not matter either.

America won without world number one Woods, but what Azinger did was find 12 players who gave their all for the cause.

Lead-off man Sergio Garcia simply could not live with the superb start made by Anthony Kim.

The American birdied three of the first four holes and although he won only one of those a par was good enough at the sixth.

As they started the back nine Harrington was just teeing off – and did so with the Americans up in eight games and down in only three.

Garcia three-putted the 11th and 12th, bogeyed the next as well and his fourth defeat in five Ryder Cup singles was just around the corner.

Not that Kim realised – he was off to the 15th tee before he was told it was over.

Robert Karlsson had sparkled on Saturday, albeit in only halving a fourball and he sparkled again to beat 1999 American hero Justin Leonard for what was his first victory since coming into the side two years ago.

It then became 10-9 with Justin Rose repeating his 2007 World Match Play victory over world number two Phil Mickelson.

Rose, taking three points out of four on his debut, finished it off with a 30-foot birdie putt on the difficult 16th.

The one-point gap was maintained when Britain's Paul Casey won the last to halve with Hunter Mahan, who after making a thrilling 45-foot putt on the 17th could not bring himself back to earth in time and drove into the lake off the next tee.

"I thought I had a good chance on 17 and he just threw a bomb on me," said the Englishman, Faldo's other wildcard.

Home state hero Kenny Perry needed painkillers after hurting his shoulder, but a three and two victory over Henrik Stenson, followed by Boo Weekley claiming the scalp of Oliver Wilson, took only two points from their target with six games still going.

Then came a win for the other Kentuckian JB Holmes over Soren Hansen and the winning point came from Jim Furyk when he beat Miguel Angel Jimenez on the 17th.