The Miracle of Medinah is going to take some beating but the Harrying at Hazeltine will give it a good run for its money on the evidence of this. Four years after that mesmerising recovery in Chicago, Team Europe are needing to channel their inner Houdini again.

The 41st Ryder Cup burst out of the early morning murk and shimmered in the sun as the USA and Europe slugged it out like prize fighters in the ring. The visitors had been left wobbling and reeling around on the ropes after a savage, bloody pounding in the morning foursomes left them 4-0 down.

The chase was on though. They came out with all guns blazing in the fourballs as they set about performing the kind of sizeable salvage operation that resembled the raising of the Mary Rose. At the end of a day of wildly fluctuating fortunes and momentum shifts, the scoreline reads USA 5 Europe 3. Darren Clarke, the European skipper, will certainly settle for that after what had gone before.

The clock was reading 4.40pm in the US of A when Justin Rose, in partnership with Henrik Stenson, smoothly rolled in a putt to polish off a 5&4 win over Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed and give Europe their first point. Two more would follow. From looking down and out after a devastating morning, the Europeans are suddenly alive and kicking again.

Rory McIlroy encapsulated this fighting spirit. Playing alongside the mightily impressive rookie, Thomas Pieters, the Northern Irishman finished with a flourish and put the US pair of Dustin Johnson and Matt Kuchar to the sword with a magical eagle on the 16th to complete a 3&2 win. He took a bow on the green and then launched into a thrusting bawl of rampant exultation. There were plenty of other scenes of jubilation too as Europe turned things around.

Sergio Garcia, beaten in partnership with Martin Kaymer in the morning, was galvanised when paired with his rookie compatriot Rafa Cabrera Bello and they added to the European tally with a 3&2 defeat of JB Holmes and Ryan Moore. In the grand traditions of great Spanish Ryder Cup alliances, the duo simply revelled in each other’s company. Cabrera Bello was terrific and he provided the perfect foil for Garcia’s exuberant advances. Garcia’s chip in on the ninth summed up this effervescent majesty.

It had been quite a day. On the back foot, behind the eight ball, in a pickle? You name it, Europe found themselves in it during a jaw-dropping morning session

A US whitewash of the foursomes, only the fifth clean sweep in the history of the contest and the first for over 40 years, gave a rampaging Team America the kind of start the Task Force could never have concocted in their wildest dreams. The last time the US romped into such a healthy advantage was in 1975 when Arnold Palmer was the captain. In the week of his passing, it was perhaps fitting that the Americans doled out a lesson from history.

By high noon on the opening day of the opening series of matches, those of a European persuasion were already muttering the words ‘well, we’ll just need to produce another Miracle of Medinah’. The first four points may have been plundered by the Americans but with 24 still to play for as the afternoon session got underway, the old Dad’s Army catchphrase ‘don’t panic’ may have been getting trotted out in a flustered team room.

Clarke’s motto for his battalion of 12 good men is ‘shoulder to shoulder’ but it was the Americans who were head and shoulders above them in those crucial, early exchanges as they grabbed the initiative in a tight double nelson.

“We’re a fortified team,” declared Zach Johnson. Clarke must have felt like grasping for the fortified wine after a fairly sobering morning in which his best laid plans were smothered in the stars and stripes and booted into Lake Hazeltine.

The old sages say that it’s always important for an away team in a Ryder Cup to try to silence the crowds. There wasn’t much chance of that at a jam-packed, boisterous venue that was bursting at the seams. The patriotic, partisan masses generated a quite fearsome din and the US players were doing their bit to crank up the volume. In total, Davis Love III’s men produced a profitable haul of 19 birdies in the four matches compared to Europe’s eight.

Reed, all bulldog spirit and fist-pumping, teamed up with his fellow Spieth and the young gunslingers from the Lone Star state shot down the experienced alliance of Rose and Stenson.

Reed and Spieth were unbeaten in pairs during their Ryder Cup debuts at Gleneagles in 2014. Rose and Stenson had won three out of three in partnership in Perthshire too. Three birdies over the first seven holes from the US duo swiftly left that unbeaten record in tatters. When Reed trundled in a 12-footer on the 16th to complete a 3&2 win, the roars sounded like they were being blasted through a stack of Marshall amps. Everywhere you turned, the US were holing putts. As for Europe? “We couldn’t buy a putt,” said Rose. It summed up the collective lack of spark. Rose and Stenson would have their revenge though.

With an out of sorts Lee Westwood doing little to aid Pieters’s cup debut, it was no surprise that the European pair went down to a heavy 5&4 defeat to Kuchar and Johnson. They may have been 2-0 down but things were looking more upbeat for Europe in the middle order. Well, they were until the pendulum swung quite dramatically. Momentum is big in the Ryder Cup and the US took ownership of it. Jimmy Walker and Zach Johnson had been one down to Garcia and Martin Kaymer after 11 but they came with a charge that should have been accompanied by a bugle and birdied 13, 14 and 16 to surge to a 4&2 win.

Europe desperately needed to salvage something and when McIlroy stroked in birdie putts at the 13th and 14th to give himself and Andy Sullivan a two-hole lead over Phil Mickelson and Rickie Fowler it looked like they would. But they bogeyed the next, lost the 16th to a birdie and then conceded the par-three 17th when Sullivan’s tee-shot plunged into the water. McIlroy’s last ditch attempt to pinch a half on the last failed and the US won by one hole. “I felt more pressure going into this match than any other in the Ryder Cup,” said a relieved Mickelson, who effectively set in motion the Task Force.

Pressure is the name of this game, of course. The US piled it on over the course of the opening morning. Europe had to find a way to rally and exert some of their own. And they did. Suddenly there were putts going in and there was plenty of morale-raising European blue on the board as the visitors produced a thrilling surge.

Miracles occasionally do happen. In the Ryder Cup, the Europeans are well aware of that.