Pass the gas and air please. There have been some breathless finales in the Solheim Cup down the years but what transpired here in Perthshire yesterday really was quite extraordinary. This jaw-dropping duel in the Glen will go down as a shimmering jewel in golfing history.

Catriona Matthew’s fearless, never-say-die Europeans somehow wrestled the cup out of American hands with a stomach-churning, hands-over-the-eyes finale that was so unbearably tense, it was akin to watching somebody trying to defuse a bomb and sweating over which wire to cut as the clock ticked down to zero.

When the remarkable, resolute Suzann Pettersen knocked in a birdie putt of some seven-feet to beat Marina Alex on the final hole of the final game of what, she later admitted, would be her final act as a touring professional, Team Europe exploded in a rampant riot of jubilant, joyous exaltation. Who said sport is good for your health again?

READ MORE: Suzann Pettersen announces her retirement

The final, wonderful scoreboard read Europe 14 ½ - USA 13 ½. The Europeans won the cup for the first time since 2013 and kept the unbeaten run on Scottish soil going. It’s now three out of three in the game’s cradle.

After all the worries about Pettersen’s place in the side – Matthew was never worried, of course - it was perhaps inevitable that it would be the vastly experienced, confident and defiant Norwegian who would have the final say.

Four events and three missed cuts had been the sum total of her competitive golf in 18 months having taken time off to have her son, Herman, but she produced the mother of all performances yesterday to deliver a heart-stopping victory that should have been accompanied by a mid-wife.

Four years ago in Germany, Pettersen was cast as the villain as her stubborn refusal to concede a putt to her rivals caused a right old stooshie and, in many ways, helped galvanise an aggrieved US who would go on to win.

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This was the ultimate redemption. It would be later followed by retirement. Talk about going out at the top.

“I always had faith in Suzann,” said a triumphant Matthew, after she was carried aloft by her giddy team.

“It was just unbelievable. There has never been a better moment.”

With the sides level-pegging at 8-8 going into the final 12 singles, the ebb and flow, nip and tuck and cut and thrust of this engrossing day truly was a joy to behold.

Europe, who had won three of the first four matches, had performed superbly throughout.

Georgia Hall and the brilliant rookie, Celine Boutier, both pitched in with wins to take their points tally for the week to four out of four. The problem for Europe was that the USA lassies were doing their stuff too and it looked like the match would agonisingly slip away from the hosts in the last knockings.

There was so much going on here, there and everywhere it was almost impossible to keep track of this, that and the other as the pendulum swung all over the shop.

The sighs of resignation, meanwhile, were considerable when Charley Hull made a calamitous hash of the 18th – she didn’t make the green with her chip then putted over the other side of it – and allowed Megan Khang to pinch a half point. The sense of deflation there could not have been more different to the elation felt on that same green barely an hour later.

After Lizette Salas had held off a tearful Anne van Dam on the 18th, the USA just needed a half point from the final three matches left out on the course. Surely it would come? In this game, of course, the only certainty is the uncertainty.

Anna Nordqvist, playing in the anchor match against Morgan Pressel, grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and eventually closed out a commanding 4&3 win.

That left Europe one point behind and with just Pettersen and Bronte Law’s matches still going there was absolutely no margin for error.

Law, the 24-year-old rookie with the terrific matchplay pedigree, stepped up to the plate and dug so deep she just about earned honorary membership of the British Archaeological Society.

She holed a vital putt for a half on the 15th against Ally McDonald to stay all-square and won the next two to clinch a vital 2&1 success which kept European hearts beating.

Those anxiously looking on, meanwhile, were just about having heart attacks.

Seconds after Law’s decisive moment, Pettersen had hers. Alex’s birdie putt of some 10-feet to retain the cup missed. Pettersen’s all or nothing effort, amid intolerable tension, did not.

The celebrations could begin.