While his fellow Northern Irishman had been asked to play in the opening match, the world's best player was on a mission as the final day singles got underway at Gleneagles.

He had laughed and grinned his way round the PGA Centenary Course in the company of Sergio Garcia and Ian Poulter during the previous days but yesterday, even accompanied by his best friend on the other team, it was a stony-faced Rory McIlroy who strode purposefully into action.

Number three, traditionally the slot for the top gun in cricket teams was, it seemed, the position that both Ryder Cup captains had chosen for their best players. Tom Watson desperately sought momentum for the United States, while Paul McGinley aimed to make his opponent more uncomfortable still.

Rickie Fowler may, then, have been the top American in this season's big events, claiming top-five finishes in all four majors, but McIlroy was determined to register the first point for Europe on the final day of the Ryder Cup and send a signal to his team-mates.

Others who have held the status he now has as the sport's official No.1 may have had more intimidating auras, but from the outset Fowler seemed unnerved by what confronted him. Indeed, after watching his opponent knock his approach to within 10 feet at the opening hole, the American fluffed a chip. McIlroy duly holed for a birdie but did not have to at the next two holes where his eagle and birdie putts were conceded as his opponent toiled.

Perhaps most telling of all, though, was the look on McIlroy's face as he left the fourth green - he appeared almost angry with himself for failing to hole from around 20 feet when a chance for another win was spurned.

Perhaps aware of what was happening elsewhere, with Europe struggling in all the other matches on the course at that stage, the impression was that McIlroy wanted not just to win but to do so as early as possible. That impression was confirmed at the next two holes.

At the fifth, Fowler almost drove his ball into the whins, while from the middle of the fairway McIlroy knocked his own to 10 feet and registered another birdie. That put him four up.

At the short sixth, Fowler came up 20 yards short and, while he almost chipped in, it was to no avail as McIlroy holed from 12 feet for a two. Five up.

This was no longer about who would win but when. That notion prevailed even after McIlroy, officially one-under threes through six, made his first error, dropped a shot at the seventh hole.

He continued to falter, if only by comparison with the way he had started, but Fowler could not hole a 15-foot birdie putt at the eighth. Then, and having driven into a bunker, McIlroy recovered with a supreme third shot to match his opponent's birdie at the long ninth. He had reached the turn in what was recorded as 30 shots, admittedly aided by a couple of generous early concessions, but extraordinary in the circumstances nonetheless.

With Graeme McDowell turning the opening match around by then the former Ryder Cup partners, teased by Phil Mickelson ahead of their matches about the way they are litigating against one another, were now engaged in a very different contest: to be able to be claim to have won that first singles point.

Fowler held McIlroy off as long as he could, but when the American was yet again forced to concede the 13th after charging his first long-range putt past the hole to result in McIlroy having two chances to hole from eight feet again, it was dormie five. The coup de grace was applied a hole later.

"I was more up for this than for the final days of the two majors I won this season. It just meant so much to be to be a part of this team and to win," said McIlroy, the Open and USPGA champion.

As he attempted assess his display he was interrupted several times by champagne flutes being passed to all members of the team, resulting in the world No.1 blurting out: "What I'm trying to say is I'm delighted that Europe won."

However, that gave Justin Rose - the team's highest points scorer this weekend - a chance to outline McIlroy's standing among his peers. "What he's trying to say is that he's had more champagne this summer than all of us combined," Rose said.

Describing this as the icing on the cake of his great summer, McIlroy took particular satisfaction from having lived up to expectations. "I came out and played the best golf I played all week," he said.

"But I know what's expected of me . . . that I would need to go out and deliver points."

As at Hoylake and Valhalla in the preceding two months he had once again demonstrated the difference between merely being able to compete at this level and producing the big win when it matters.

While the same may also be true of his opponent yesterday, this team event has surely reinforced McIlroy's sense of self as the indisputable leader of European and world golf.