The European and American Ryder Cup teams are due to arrive at Dublin airport today and will begin a round of media interviews before the golf contest gets under way on Friday.
Some 32 separate media interviews will be held from today until Thursday afternoon, when President Mary McAleese will officially open the event at 3.30pm.
The US team is expected at the airport at around 9am today accompanied by their wives and partners, with the exception of Tiger Woods and Jim Furyk, who had been competing in the HSBC World Match Play Championship in Wentworth. The team will be welcomed by European Ryder Cup captain Ian Woosnam, and his two vice-captains, Ireland's Des Smyth and Britain's Peter Baker.
The team will bypass the regular security channels at the airport and will not appear in the arrivals area on the ground floor of the building. Instead, they will be taken directly to the nearby Great Southern Hotel.
Both Woosnam and US captain Tom Lehman will host a joint press conference there in advance of the arrival of the European team, who are expected to fly in with their wives and partners at around 2.15pm.
The two teams will then be bused to the K Club, where a second captain's press conference will be held at 4pm. This will be followed by individual interviews with Darren Clarke, Jose-Maria Olazabal and Robert Karlsson.
Ryder Cup spectators will have their first chance to see the players on Tuesday, when the event's security system will get its first test. Ryder Cup Europe LLP has said that every ticket will be checked against photographic ID and anyone without ID will be refused admission. The pledge will require a huge security presence and is likely to slow down entry to the course. They will also check for and confiscate mobile phones along with cameras and alcohol.
Spectators will arrive on shuttle buses from the park-and- ride centres at Weston Aerodrome and Palmerstown House, as well as from the railway station in Leixlip.
Specially scheduled trains will run from Connolly Station to Leixlip every 30 minutes from 5.45am. But Iarnród Éireann will not run early morning Darts on Sunday to connect with the special service. The first Dart on Sunday is at 9am from Bray and at 9.35am from Howth.
Meanwhile, some "A-list" spectators will be further from the action at the event than they had anticipated following a court decision on Saturday. The High Court's Mr Justice Frank Clarke, rejected an application for an injunction from US-Ireland Alliance to force the organisers of hospitality at the event to let it keep its 30-seater suite beside the 17th fairway.
The non-profit making organisation asked the court to reverse a decision by European Tour Hospitality Ltd to move them to a poorer viewing site on the 16th fairway.
Counsel for the organisation, whose board includes the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Senators George Mitchell and Edward Kennedy, argued that the Ryder Cup has been decided on either the 17th or 18th hole in all but one tournament in the last 30 years and that they had been promised the prestigious Liffey Suite.
But the organisers argued that despite a payment of €180,000 from US-Ireland Alliance, they retained the right to decide the final location of all of the guests.
