2006 Ryder Cup/American View: The next Ryder Cup won't be played until 2008 at Valhalla. That gives us two years to work on annexing Fiji.

While a bit of soft rain may have fallen in Kildare over the three days, consider this: on Saturday, the day of the heaviest downpours at The K Club, Kentucky, the next Ryder Cup venue, got five inches of rain and tornadoes to boot.

Tom Lehman may have no time for second-guessers, but not all of his players appear to agree with him. It's just that they no more have the answers to what went wrong than he did.

"I don't think there's a guy up here who can give you the answer," said Jim Furyk. "But it's definitely going to have to be a point of reflection in the future."

Paul Azinger would appear to be the leader in the clubhouse as Lehman's successor. Corey Pavin, who was at The K Club as one of the US vice-captains, is also in the running to captain the team in Louisville, but after what transpired here over the weekend, the PGA of America may be inclined to clean house in the hope of eradicating the stench.

Although he wouldn't turn down the job, Johnny Miller probably didn't improve his own slim chances at the weekend. Already controversial for his on-air pronouncements, around lunchtime on Saturday, Miller was caught chatting with his NBC colleagues during a commercial break, when he described Scott Verplank as "a dead weight" and noted that if Zach Johnson "had had a partner he'd be up 6 and 5 right now".

At that precise moment colleague Roger Maltbie whispered through Miller's earpiece to remind him that his comments were being piped not only into the press room, but directly into the US players' locker-room.

"That's okay, boys, enjoy yourselves in there," said Miller. "Now you've got something else for the bulletin board."

Meanwhile, a few lingering impressions from a glorious weekend.

When Tiger Woods's churlish caddie Stevie Williams stumbled on the rocks beside the seventh green on Sunday he dropped Eldrick's nine-iron to the bottom of the lake.

"It was either Stevie or the nine-iron," recalled Woods, who managed to see the humour in the situation, even though he needed the club at least once more before it was salvaged by a frogman and returned seven holes later.

Stevie or the nine-iron? Fortunately for the caddie, they didn't let the boys in the press room vote on that one.

And then there was Woosie's champagne booger. Early on in the madcap European celebration, Ian Woosnam stopped spraying from his champagne magnum long enough to try to chug it, wound up pouring it right up his nose, and came away with a four-inch long bit of bubbly mucous dangling from his beak.

When they get around to installing Woosie's official captain's portrait in the rogues' gallery at The Belfry, that's the picture we want to see.

The Europeans' resolute confidence going into these matches was aptly illustrated by their predetermined choice of post-game attire. We know those pink blazers were meant as a tribute to breast cancer awareness, but wouldn't they have looked awfully silly on the backs of a losing team?

Woosie might be a professional golfer, but, particularly alongside Darren Clarke, he is a rank amateur in the drinking department.

When the Man of the Hour lifted a pint of Guinness and drained it in five seconds flat, it brought cheers of applause from even the hardened crew in the press tent.

Paul McGinley took a bit of stick from Woosnam for conceding JJ Henry's long birdie putt on the final green. Had Henry missed, it would have provided the Europeans with their biggest-ever margin of victory, surpassing the rout at Oakland Hills that they instead matched.

"I'll have a word with Paul later," promised Woosie.

"It was a gesture that was made in the right spirit," said McGinley, who offered Henry his hand after Corky the Streaker disrupted his concentration by racing across the green.

When he sobers up, someone might remind Woosie that even in the disgraceful aftermath at Brookline, the late Payne Stewart conceded a long putt on 18 to Colin Montgomerie - and that one gave Monty a win, not a halved match.

From the time they stepped off the plane at Dublin airport until the moment they leave this week, visitors to Ireland were greeted everywhere with the visage of Padraig Harrington. Harrington might have been the face of this year's Ryder Cup, but he didn't have the greatest of tournaments.

You wouldn't want to point this out unless you were about to climb on a plane yourself, but over three days the Americans won just six matches outright - and Harrington was on the losing end of four of them.

We had assumed that our abiding memory of this Ryder Cup would be the emotional greeting - from the crowd, his partner, and his opponents - Clarke received on the first tee Friday morning, but that moment paled in comparison to the touching scene on the 16th green on Sunday afternoon.

The emotions came tumbling out unchecked, and Tom Lehman even beat Woosnam to Clarke for the first captain's hug. Tiger Woods wasn't far behind in offering, literally, a shoulder for his friend to cry on.

Ironically, just a few weeks earlier Woods had been among those urging Clarke to bury his sorrows by offering to make himself available as a captain's pick.

"You won't be saying that if I go out there and kick your ass," Clarke had told him. "Unfortunately," said Tiger Sunday night, "he went out there and he did it."

Woods' was among the scalps taken by Clarke in going three forthree over the weekend. Going into Sunday it had appeared that this was going to be Sergio Garcia's Ryder Cup.

Instead it turned out to be Darren Clarke's.