IT WAS pitch black at Medinah Country Club when Sky teed off its coverage and all you could see were luminous and marginally garish green shirts approaching the Taj Mahal-ish clubhouse in the gloom, like they actually had no bodies inside them. But then, when the lights picked them out, there they were: Team Europe.

They all looked chirpy enough, considering dawn had yet to crack in Illinois, apart, maybe, from a bleary-eyed Lee Westwood, who appeared to be sleep-walking past the cameras. “Hmphasgzfsth,” he said, so you worried about his preparedness.

Indeed, when they announced during Thursday’s opening ceremony who’d be kicking off Europe’s challenge, not long after seven in the morning, Graeme McDowell and Rory McIlroy had the look of two fellas who wished they practised their football a little harder. It’s an early birdie sport, so to speak.

Sky? Up for it. In a very serious way.

Actually, such was the tone of their introduction to Day One, it was a surprise Sky didn’t accompany Team Europe’s early morning arrival to the tune of, say, Onward Golfing Soldiers, Marching as to War. You’d never imagine America was sort of an ally.

A sombre David Livingstone, sounding a bit Shankly-esque, told us that “it’s three days of sport – but it’s much more than that. It’s three days of human drama”, and that was almost enough to reduce Colin Montgomerie to tears.

Colin loves the Ryder Cup, with such a passion it can be a little bit scary. His nostrils flare every time he emotes about it, and you always get the uncomfortable feeling he’s about to dissolve any moment. It could be that because he was too young to fight in either World War he sees it as a kind of patriotic replacement on his CV, and as we all know he’s been in the trenches for Europe more than once, as a player and team supremo.

“Colin and I arrived here at twenty past four this morning and there were two European guys wanting their photograph taken with Colin,” David told us. Colin beamed. “Sad. Sad. These guys need a life,” he said.

Well.

“It’s now It’s 6.30 and the grandstand by the first tee has been full for over an hour,” David added, and it was too.

“USA! USA!”

“Ole, Ole, Ole, Ole.”

Gas stuff, it has to be said.

Back to David who worried that because of Rory’s usefulness on a golf course he could be a “marked man” for the Americans, Colin and Butch Harmon nodding gravely.

Those of us who don’t really know the ins and outs of golf were left wondering how you could be marked in the sport, like Davis Love III would tackle Rory brutally from behind as he lined up a putt on the first green?

Out at the first tee Howard Clarke was giving us a taste of the atmosphere, but it wasn’t easy to hear what he was saying with the “USA! USA!” chants, one man actually howling “in the hoooooooooooole” before divil a ball had been struck.

Colin, meanwhile, was trying to explain to us how Davis III had set up the course to America’s advantage, he was, he said, “trying to make it a putting competition because he feels that his players are longer and less straight”.

We didn’t check Twitter, but you can only imagine.

A quick word with a very emotional Ian Poulter, who revealed he’d never been more excited in his life.

“And when Ian Poulter says he’s never been more excited, you know something’s going on,” David purred.

Monty’s nostrils flared again. Butch just looked us straight in the eye, as he tends to do on telly, and purred a little too.

Poulter also confirmed that Jose’s speech the night before had reduced Team Europe to tears, so by now even us non-initiated folk were realising that this was no ordinary sporting ding dong.

“Describe your emotions for us,” Richard Boxall asked Jose when he caught up with him on the course, and the floodgates almost opened again.

“I don’t want to be biased in any way, but . . .” said Colin, his nostrils by now out of control.

Ball-hitting time. Graeme had the honour of whacking the first one, but, alas, it almost ended up in Carnoustie.

Mind you, that was nothing compared to the troubles Tiger Woods had a bit later, Ewen Murray noting his tee shot was heading for the hospitality tent.

“He’s in the woods, he’s in the caravan park, all sorts, almost the tennis courts,” said Colin. “If there wasn’t a boundary that would have been out of bounds.”

Still, despite his woes, Tiger was back out again later in the day.

Colin was at a loss to understand why he hadn’t been benched. “I’d have taken him off the course after nine holes, never mind 18,” he said.

Dangerous talk, that. Now for Day Two. Onward golfing soldiers.