Everything was decided more than 12 months ago before being put in aspic

Everything was decided more than 12 months ago, before being put in aspic. So there’s been little of the traditional needling, or phoney animosity between players who on every other occasion are the best of friends.But once the first fourball tees off on Friday morning, however, the American public will experience the same old patriotic surge. Maybe the atmosphere at the Belfry will be more civil – not before time many will argue after the rampaging of US fans and even the players’ wives around the 17th green at Brookline, Massachusetts in 1999, when Justin Leonard of the US sank a 45-foot putt to clinch the match.But once again a golf tournament is poised to turn into the sporting equivalent of war, even after the real act of war that caused the tournament’s postponment killed 3,000 people – and when another war, against Iraq, may be about to begin.So don’t bet on gentility winning out. The Ryder Cup is hand-to-hand combat in the uniquely exciting format of matchplay, culminating in the 12 singles contests on the Sunday afternoon, when the battle fluctates hole-by-hole, shot-by-shot, minute-by-minute. “We don’t play this at a neutral site, it’s a biased crowd,” even the utterly impassive David Duval has acknowledged “I don’t think you want to be too civil.

I don’t mean that in a bad way, but you need some emotion.”Curtis Strange, the US team captain, agrees. “Some wonder whether the rivalry will be as intense or the fans as rabid,” he wrote in Golf Magazine this month. “But I think once the first peg goes in the ground, the game will be on as usual. The fans will support their team as strongly as they always have.”Strange is raring to go, as well he might.

Over the intervening year golf’s balance of power has if anything tilted away from Europe towards the US – with the decline of Colin Montgomerie and Lee Westwood, who 12 months ago would have been considered the lynchpins of the European team only serving to emphasise the strength in depth of a US line-up named in 2001, but boasting six of the top 12 in today’s world rankings.There have been surprisingly few demands for changes to reflect current form. “I believe no one should be punished for an attack on our country,” Strange added. “From the beginning Sam Torrance and I agreed we wouldn’t change anything This is and always will be the 2001 team.”. There is a certain dichotomy between the strokeplay and matchplay records of the world’s pre-eminent golfer. Tiger Woods is, well, below average when it comes to the mano a mano conflict of matchplay. Give him a pencil stub and a scorecard and, likely as not, he will make sure that the opposition’s number is up. Things are a lot different in the hole-by-hole format and this will surely be a source of encouragement to the European captain, Sam Torrance, whose team are supposed to be going to The Belfry to be wiped out by golf’s superpower.