By Amy Tennery
FARMINGDALE, New York (Reuters) -The Americans walked away without the Ryder Cup crown on Sunday but their spine-tingling fightback on the final day at Bethpage Black was plenty to be proud about, said U.S. captain Keegan Bradley.
Commentators and fans excoriated the leader of the home effort as the Americans stared down a historic 11-1/2 to 4-1/2 deficit through the first two days on Long Island, while Bradley refused to give up the fight.
He invoked his beloved New England Patriots'
legendary comeback from 28-3 to beat the Atlanta Falcons at the Super Bowl in 2017 to motivate his players, and had the clutch cool of Tom Brady as a sea of red went up early on the scoreboard on Sunday.
The U.S. came up just 1-1/2 points short - allowing Europe to eke out a rare away victory 15-13 - but Bradley said they would leave with their heads held high.
"They were fighting the whole way, even when things were not looking good, and I didn't expect anything different today," he said. "Never more proud of anything in my life."
The American side ended the day with 8.5 points in singles, matching the highest total during the era of 12 singles matches.
"Europeans won one match today. You think about the odds of something like that happening, just on a coin flip would be incredible," said Bradley.
"To watch them go out all week and hold their heads high and then go out there today and do what they did is close to a miracle."
The team had arrived at Bethpage under controversy over player pay, with U.S. team members paid a $200,000 stipend by the PGA of America, on top of $300,000 in charity funds, bucking long-standing tradition as Europe's best are not paid at all.
The increase from the $200,000 - which had been designated only for charity since 1999 - prompted speculation from Europe's captain Luke Donald that the U.S. fans could turn on the home team if they did not perform.
The home crowd came to their aide on the final day, cheering and ruthlessly heckling the visitors in Farmingdale, New York.
"When New York fans and hardworking people, people that grew up around here see people playing with that sort of heart and that sort of passion and that sort of grit of not giving up, they get behind that pretty quick," said Bradley.
(Reporting by Amy Tennery in Farmingdale, New York; Editing by Stephen Coates)
