Schoolyard rivalry beginning to take shape

VALHALLA GOLF BLOG:IT WAS difficult to escape the feeling that there were schoolboy overtones to yesterday's first practice day proper of the 37th Ryder Cup at Valhalla. The first inkling came when alighting from the media shuttle and being ordered into two singles lines to await passage through security.

It recalled days in the school playground while waiting to head back to the classroom after break. It wasn't quite a cavity search but when Checkpoint Charlie approached with security scanner poised, I sensed complications. Sure enough it didn't take long before the scanner emitted a high pitched sonata where one beep meshed into the next.

Beep. What's that? My mobile phone. Beep. What's that? My hotel key card. Beep. What's that? My pet squirrel. Excuse me? Sorry, I'm joking. Let me see. It's some coins. That's fine sir, you have a nice day.

Sir is the default form of address at Valhalla, a recurring soundtrack accompanied by bright smiles and an enthusiastic delivery. It doesn't matter whether it's shallow or not; it is relentlessly polite.

Strolling down to the ninth fairway, the European team are having official pictures taken in a variety of poses: with and without caddies, with and without bags before a battery of photographers and television cameras.

This too offers remnants of schooldays. No one is really paying too much attention to the patient direction of Getty Image's David Cannon as the European posse indulge in a bit of pushing and face pulling. It smacks of the juvenile antics of the class room.

A couple of hundred yards away several of the American team make their way to the practice putting green. While the Europeans are festooned in a light pastel blue, the host nation have adopted more sombre colouring including grey trousers of the school uniform variety.

The clothing appears to reflect the mood of the respective teams, the Americans quietly studious as they head for the 10th tee while the Europeans represent the more boisterous element of the class of 2008.