The battle of Brookline, aka the Ryder Cup contest between the US and Europe can be viewed live by Cablelink, Cable Management Ireland (CMI) and Irish Multichannel subscribers at no extra cost this weekend, writes John O'Sullivan. In the case of Cablelink, viewers must tune their television to the TV5 channel.

The following details provide information on how to find the Ryder Cup channel on Cablelink. To facilitate customers who wish to tune in their television set in advance, a special test card was broadcast from yesterday. Once the Ryder Cup finishes TV5 will revert to normal schedules.

CMI and Irish Multichannel have confirmed that their customers will also be able to view the action. For those tied to the Multichannel they are advised to contact their local operators for tuning in details while CMI pointed out that the Ryder Cup will go out on their Eurosport channel and subscribers who wish to view the event should contact the company's head office in Dublin.

Today's action begins with the four foursomes. A match in this format consists of two players from each side playing one ball and hitting alternate shots on a matchplay basis, where holes are either won, lost or halved. No matter who finishes out a hole, it is the person who did not drive at that hole, who tees off at the next.

The afternoon's play will see four four-balls from each side in action. This format is for both players from each side to play their own ball with the better score from each pair counting. Again it is on a matchplay basis where holes are won, lost or halved. Tomorrow sees the exact same format, morning and afternoon while on Sunday there will be 12 Singles matches.