TV VIEW/Johnny Waterson
"The issue on the ball is quite important. In golf it's different because golf is an individual game. So if you play with one ball and I play with another, it doesn't really matter." The Belfry ? No, ghostly Lansdowne Road.
"It's a smaller ball too," interjects Brent Pope in a deliberate ploy to knock George Hook off his train of thought in his latest thesis courtesy of RTÉ sport. Professor Hook, for a second, looks like he's been hit by a Kevin Maggs tackle as he continues to explain the importance of the rugby ball before Ireland's facile World Cup qualification match against Georgia.
"Who's the fella in the Louis Copeland suit?" shoots Hook, regaining the deprecatory high ground. "So, therefore it's balls, all balls, but there is a golf analogy. If you play with a Titleist every Saturday and somebody hands you a Pinnacle on Monday, you won't play very well with it." "And there's the ball," says Tom McGurk as the camera zooms in on a practising Ronan O'Gara.
"There's the ball," says prof Hook. "And interestingly the Gilbert company are in receivership." The thing was that this was more compelling than the perfunctory match. After one minute and 52 seconds Ireland scored their first try; after 15 minutes Ireland were 20-0 ahead and looking like Tiger Woods with a three-shot lead going down the back nine.
We leave rugby but not before one last professorial nugget.
"The tight head Tsabadze is very interesting. He's a world renowned wrestler."
The players' wives on Sky Sports are making quite a din on the network's 7.30 a.m. to last ball coverage of the Ryder Cup, where for once there are more spectators than at Irish rugby's HQ. Sergio, however, brought his mum instead of his widely touted girlfriend, tennis star Martina Hingis. One can only presume she declined the offer to dress up as one of Santa's helpers and wave a European flag.
You must wonder too if bringing players' partners into the picture is such a good idea. Once in the public domain, they become public property.
Golf isn't known for it's salacious coverage by the media but what's going to happen if Nick Faldo becomes the European captain and his two former wives and one current wife want to come and watch. No, no, no, bad idea. Bad idea all-round.
The sports equivalent of a three-day stag party, the Ryder Cup beats up on the senses, as the Americans might say. Where one day ends and another begins, then suddenly you're juggling the singles matches in your head on Sunday afternoon.
Top loaded, Montgomerie, Garcia, Clarke and Langer lead out the European singles assault to stack some European points on the scoreboard.
"This is a sprint for these guys, who are used to playing over four rounds not one, " says Bruce Critchley. "A five-furlong race, vitally important to get a strong start."
Darren Clarke follows orders. Padraig Harrington displays nerves, a four-foot putt pulled expertly to the left like any amateur, to halve the first hole.
"That's nerves," observes Critchley. "That's a terrible putt and from a player who is normally wonderful in that aspect of the game."
Like Paul Azinger on the first tee of the first day, when he changed clubs just before hitting, then pushed his ball to the right ("have you ever heard 15,000 people shout fore to the right" observed US captain Curtis Strange), so Harrington showed an interesting side of pressure golf, one players normally keep hidden.
By nature control freaks, what they seek is yardage, wind direction, make of grass, slope of green, depth of bunker sand, width of first cut, speed of green, precise arc of swing. They practice before they play and when they finish they practice between rounds.
Ryder Cup golf is like the BBC quiz show that former world number one tennis player John McEnroe hosts. Strapped to a gurney, people are asked questions by McEnroe while fireworks go off around the studio. The idea is for contestants to answer correctly and keep their monitored heartbeat below a certain level.
So too are golfers asked to deal with internal antagonism and hostile emotions. Be cool, get pumped up. Steady hands, trembling heart. Fighting against surging adrenalin and the common sense that this may be the biggest event in which they ever play.
Harrington missed the putt and walked away disgusted with himself, but bounced back to give the Europeans a vital point against Mark Calcavecchia.
Indeed, it was a red-letter day for the Irish with Darren Clarke gaining a half with David Duval (thank goodness we were spared a repeat of his 'turkey trot' antics at Brookline) and Paul McGinley writing another chapter in the amazing history of this event.
