What makes sports competition exciting is that anything can happen. The possibility for high drama is ever present. Not just the potential for huge upsets, but athletes, under tremendous pressure, coming through in the clutch. Unknowns becoming heroes. Superstars becoming losers. Winning streaks broken. Losing streaks ending.

This past weekend's Ryder Cup competition had it all. You didn't have to be a golf fan to share the thrill of the Americans' upset win over the highly favored European team at Valhalla in Louisville, Ky. One didn't even have to understand the complex match-play scoring system to know that something extraordinary was happening. And indeed it was.

The Americans hadn't won golf's most prestigious team competition since 1999 -- absorbing three defeats in nine years in the biennial event, two of them major wipeouts, even with the world's greatest golfer on the U.S. team.

With Tiger Woods out this year following knee surgery, the U.S. team was Tigerless, but it certainly wasn't toothless. Populated with six lesser-known Ryder Cup rookies, Americans were given virtually no chance to beat the Europeans, led by superstars such as Spain's Sergio Garcia, England's Lee Westwood and Ireland's Padraig Harrington, the reigning British and PGA champion.

But Europe's Big Three came up empty -- failing to win even one match. Coming through in flying colors for the Americans, with an able assist by veteran Jim Furyk, were such players as Boo Weekley, Hunter Mahan and Anthony Kim.

After years of lopsided European wins, the Americans' surprise victory, as noted by Chronicle sports columnist Scott Michaux, has pumped a lot of excitement back into the Ryder Cup, "elevating it again to its proper place in the pantheon of great sporting events."

Also deserving of much credit is first-time Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger. His player selections and strategy came in for a lot of criticism before the win. Had the Americans done as poorly as so may "experts" predicted, Azinger's leadership would have been declared a disaster.

Instead he's a genius. Great work all around, for both captain and players.