Earlier Annika Sorenstam had been brought to tears

Becky Iverson and Meg Mallon levelled the scores with their wins but Catrin Nilsmark then survived a nervy finish to see off Rosie Jones and edge Europe to within a point of victory.

It was going to come down to one of the two rookies, Koch and Moodie, in the last two matches and it fell to Koch to hole the winning putt, making birdies at 16 and 17 to come back from three down to beat Michele Redman.

Moodie played out her match as the celebrations began, and she completed her comeback from four holes down to win one up.

Controversy

Earlier, Juli Inkster got the US team off to the best possible start in the singles by beating Annika Sorenstam 5 and 4 before the rain break.

Sorenstam had earlier accused the Americans of bad sportsmanship as controversy over one of her fourball shots.

Europe regrouped during the rain break, with Nilsmark rallying the troops with her words of advice.

And despite winning just one of the four opening singles matches, they rallied superbly.

A delighted Laura Davies said: "No individual championship can top this. It's the US Open and British Open rolled into one.

"It looked like we had blown it, it looked like we had buckled."