Locker Room: One hazard of being a sports hack is your complete lack of divisibility. People are quick to spot that you can only be in one place at the one time. They rub it in.

"I see you aren't at the Ryder Cup," they say. It's true. There's no denying it. I'm at the All-Ireland camogie final. Happy as a lark who has just won the Lotto. All of me, which is a considerable amount of me, is here at the camogie final. None of me - and, I trust, no unauthorised replica - is attending the Ryder Cup.

There's a lot wrong with the Ryder Cup, stuffed as it is with hype and chauvinism and an ersatz sort of nationalism which makes "Europeans" out of the spikiest, most Euro-sceptical individualists. It's an event which also brings out the star-spangled-

banner-waving Yanks, which in these Bush-ridden days is a little discomforting.

But this is old territory. When it comes to the Ryder Cup you are either a believer or a non-believer.

"You can always write one of those columns having a go at it again," said His Eminence The Sports Editor wearily as we discussed the absence of Ryder Cup duty from the inhumanely busy schedule he was devising for me. "Or," he added, thinking uncharacteristically to spare me some labour, "you could use one of the old ones."

No need. All the old quibbles still stand, but even more important than that the Ryder Cup is to be avoided for two new reasons: the complete absence of Monty baiting; the fact the whole dog-and-pony show is being enacted in Detroit.

Monty first. Until golf takes the jump to being a full-blown physical-contact sport, Monty baiting is the most attractive part of the pro game.

Now I'm sure Monty is a genuine charmer in real life, the salt of the well-manicured earth upon which he treads, the life and soul of the cocktail party - but he's a professional sportsman, a big-time millionaire, and he can't handle a little banter from the people who pay in to see him.

At the odd big tournament to which I am dispatched (thus, for the eagle eyed, removing my presence from the camogie scene), I am always keen to get out and about with the gallery chasing Monty. No matter how often I hear and see it, the words Great Shot Mrs Doubtfire followed by Monty's wounded glare and trembling lower lip amuse the hell out of me.

I mean, really. He's a grown man. He gets paid in wheelbarrows of cash. He takes a little abuse which is pale by comparison with what a referee in St Anne's Park on a Sunday morning would take and he becomes a gibbering mass.

Those who love Monty more than they love their own wretched lives will be prompted to write in at this point with the "flapping of a butterfly's wings in a neighbouring meadow" argument. The laserlike concentration of Monty Doubtfire is unfairly disturbed by hecklers.

At which point we must regurgitate the old joke about Christy Ring being introduced to the game of golf. Standing on the first tee with a friend, who has volunteered to tutor him, Christy is told he should aim to hit his ball straight down that strip of shortened grass called the fairway.

Duly Christy steps up and using a hurley grip drives the ball some 220 yards straight as an arrow.

"Well done, boy," says the tutor. And they walk up the fairway, and on reaching Ringy's ball the maestro is told his next shot should be aimed at that circle of very short grass ahead, which is known as the green.

So Ringy pops it up and the ball describes a lovely arc and lands with a soft plop on the green and rolls to within a few yards of the pin. Mentor and Ringy stroll up the fairway. On the fringe of the green the mentor points to the flag and tells Ringy the flag is in the hole and the object of all golf is to get the ball into the hole.

With a sudden flush of exasperation Ringy flings down his clubs and says: "You stupid Pringley langer. Why didn't you tell me that back there at the start?" Or words to that effect.

In short, it's not that hard. It's not brain surgery. Ball. Hole. Pricey equipment. Nobody shoulder charging or chopping at your wrists. Get on with it.

Sadly, Monty baiting seems to be a declining art. Nobody has the guts to go and make a grown man cry anymore. Even at the Ryder Cup.

The damn Yanks have become so self-absorbed they've forgotten how to have fun. It's a disaster for a game in which the only remaining colour is in Padraig Harrington's hair.

I predict that people will turn away from golf in their droves. And world peace will follow soon after.

The other good reason for eschewing the Ryder Cup is of course the fact that it is being played in a war zone. Detroit. It's a few years now since I was last in Detroit but unless they've razed it and started again it's still got to be a scary place.

I've been there twice in fact. Once on the trail of the father of the singer Gil Scott Heron (Papa Heron was the first black player ever to wear a Celtic jersey). Detroit was so in thrall to the motor industry that it had at the time no inclination to build a decent airport.

We landed and deplaned at what seemed like a disused shed, whereupon the worst blizzard in living memory hit the place and I was snowed in for a week at a Holiday Inn whose catering facilities consisted of vending machines. Papa Heron went uninterviewed. I lost several fingers to frostbite as I went foraging in the snow for small animals to eat.

The second visit was more recent. Wayne McCullough was fighting in the city. I flew straight to the shed, checked into my allotted hotel and was ordered to sign something called a No Partying Form.

I'm a morose Tommy No Mates sort at the best of times. A No Partying Form seemed like a cruel joke at my expense. I reacted with a Monty-like tantrum.

No partying? What's that supposed to mean?

Just sign the form, Sir.

Why? Who would I be partying with? Can I attend parties but not throw them?

Sir, before I can give you a room I must have your name on the No Partying Form.

Do I look like a 24-hour-party person? Have neighbours warned you about me?

It means no hookers, Sir. Please do not bring whores back to the hotel.

I knew then that Detroit was a classy town. Things got worse though. I dropped my bags in my room and scooted out, grabbing a taxi to the Joe Louis Arena. Watched the fight. Did the work. Came out, hopped into a cab, realised I had completely forgotten the name and the address of the hotel. So the nicest cab driver in the world drove me for several hours and a few coffee breaks around Detroit in the middle of the night.

I've never seen anything quite like it. Eight Mile and Nine Mile. Michigan Avenue. Other great arteries whose names I don't remember.

It was grim and hideous and depressing and scary. The cab driver took a perverse delight in revealing the full devastation which no-regrets capitalism had wreaked on his stoically suffering city.

The Turgid River! The Homeless Gathered around Roaring Braziers! The No-go Areas! Where the Shops Used to Be!

Bringing the Ryder Cup and all its fat, insulated opulence to Detroit reminds me of The Great Meat Scandal when to post-war, ration-pinched Britain, Ben Hogan's American Ryder Cup team sensitively brought with them 1,100 lbs of meat. Not a gift. Steaks (600) and beef and ham and bacon, etc, with which to stuff themselves while the peasants outside starved.

Of course people will demur. Great for Detroit. Great for the K Club. Great, great, great. The wealth gets spread around. Of course it doesn't.

Go to the town of Augusta, which annually stages the money-dripping Masters. See how much cash gets splashed on the ordinary Joes and Josephines. The usual carpetbaggers grab it all. Is now and ever shall be.

Fellas who break stones for a living will still break stones. And they won't be getting Pringled up of a weekend.