Glory's last shot

German Martin Kaymer sealed a Ryder Cup debut in the grandest manner possible on Sunday night - by winning the final Major of the season after a three-hole play-off with left-hander Bubba Watson.

They call it 'Glory's last shot', a reference to it being the last chance to win one of golf's biggest prizes, and a bogey five was enough for the vastly talented young Kaymer to bring the curtain down on the Major season and take the Wanamaker Trophy home with him to Munich.

It would have been a three-way play-off, but Dustin Johnson, the player who missed out on the US Open Championship in June with a closing 82, was penalised two strokes after it was ruled he had ground his club on the sand before hitting his second shot at the final hole. He was one ahead with one to play and thought when he missed a six foot par putt that another chance was still to come in the play-off.

The course on the banks of Lake Michigan has more than 1,000 bunkers, but many of them are not easily defined, so the rules of play for the week are that 'all areas ... designed and built as sand bunkers will be played as bunkers (hazards), whether or not they have been raked'.

As Johnson was left to reflect on another disappointment, Kaymer and Watson went at it alone after both finishing on 11 under par, one ahead of Rory McIlroy and Zach Johnson.

The Whistling Straits Course delivered another fantastic championship.The dramatic, intimidating visual look of the layout along with windy conditions on the final day only added to the cocktail of great golf, poor golf and a constantly changing leader board.

Kaymer's victory makes it two European wins in the last three Majors following Graeme McDowell's Pebble Beach triumph and another statement of intent ahead of the Ryder Cup. It also elevates him to the kind of legendary status in his homeland which, until now, was only enjoyed by his hero, Bernhard Langer.

Meanwhile, Kaymer's performance knocked Luke Donald out of an automatic qualifying place on the Ryder Cup table and left him needing a wild card along with Padraig Harrington. However, Paul Casey's surge into joint 12th place was just enough to lift him above Harrington into the ninth, and last, qualifying spot. There are two weeks left, though, and he could still be overtaken - especially as he is staying in America rather than going back for the race-ending Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles.

Tiger Woods failed to qualify for one of the automatic spots on the US Ryder Cup team when the selection race ended following the conclusion of the proceedings in Wisconsin. The world No 1 tied for 28th at Whistling Straits to finish 12th in the Ryder Cup standings with only the top eight receiving a place on the US team.

USPGA runner-up Bubba Watson sealed his debut in third place, but Anthony Kim and Lucas Glover also missed out.

Masters champion Phil Mickelson topped the standings from WGC Bridgestone Invitational winner Hunter Mahan as Watson, Jim Furyk, Steve Stricker, Dustin Johnson, Jeff Overton and Matt Kuchar made up the eight who qualified automatically for the matches.

Kim, who missed three months after thumb surgery, 2009 US Open champion Glover, 2007 Masters winner Zach Johnson and world number one Woods were next in line and are now in the hands of captain Corey Pavin, a man who will have a lot of thinking to do over the next few weeks as he finalises his line-up.

One man who I hope gets the nod from Pavin is the 54-hole leader from last week, Nick Watney. Like his playing partner Dustin Johnson, Watney suffered from a final round meltdown, closing with an 81 - not only destroying his USPGA dream, but toppling him out of the automatic Ryder Cup spots in the process.

But this week rightly belongs to Martin Kaymer; he kept it together and can now call himself a Major Champion. Well played.