Thunderous reaction to a godless Sky

"If there's any good news, it's that there appears to be no lightning," he said. And with that there was an almighty crash and the skies around him were illuminated by sizzling, electric sheets of, very nasty lightning. "JEEZ," he squealed. Poor old Richard Keys. Presenting the Ryder Cup for Sky Sports proved a lot more hazardous than he ever imagined. The channel had given him the honour of anchoring their live coverage of the event - and who could quibble with their choice? He may be more at home presenting football and boxing, but Richard is very definitely the man for the big occasion, no matter what the sport.

"It's one of the world's great sporting dramas - it's all about passion, it's about desire, it's about history . . . and revenge. It's about team spirit and playing for each other. It's about Spain, style and, of course, Seve. It's the Ryder Cup," he said. See? That man would move you to tears.

"It's the biggest sporting event of the year," he continued. Now if Richard was given a pound for every time he used that line in one of his introductions, he could buy Ronaldo for his beloved Coventry City - and Alan Shearer. "In fact, there's never been a golf event like it," he added, perhaps not realising that this was actually the 32nd Ryder Cup. But, by Saturday morning, when play was delayed again by thunderstorms, Richard was feeling a little fed up. "It's just ridiculous isn't it? We came to Spain for the weather and we got this. Quite honestly, I feel we should be on the weather channel - for the past two mornings we've sat here and just talked about the weather," he said to a nodding Bernard Gallacher, who had also grown tired of talking about the elements.

If you believe in these things, you could well trace Richard's lightning problem back to Thursday's opening ceremony when he interrupted Father John's blessing of the course to bring us an ad break. They may have had exclusive rights to live coverage of the Ryder Cup but, evidently, Sky Sports has no religion.

It had started so well, too, on Thursday. It was Friday night before the BBC showed us any of the opening ceremony and even then, it was only a miserable 20 seconds of it. Some would argue that was more than enough, but they're only the Philistines who didn't appreciate the display by the Royal Andalucian School of Equestrian Art (horses walking around on their hind legs then leaping in to the air).

Not only did Sky show us the whole opening ceremony, we got the build-up to it and the aftermath of it as well. They had promised us comprehensive coverage of the Ryder Cup, but we had no idea just how comprehensive they meant.

"What could be more Spanish than that, that's an absolute give-away, isn't it," said an impressed Richard, who gets to see very little equestrian art when he's covering football (apart from Tony Adams' mazy runs upfield). But, just as master of ceremonies Lorenzo Mila asked everyone to be "upstanding" for the blessing by Father John, Richard's mug appeared on the screen. "More from the Ryder Cup shortly, time for a break." "May you be struck down Richard," someone may well have said somewhere and on Friday and Saturday morning, he very nearly was.

One of the ads we saw in the break was most curious - it featured a golfer suffering from a "diarrhoea attack" in the middle of his round. He was lining up a putt when the camera zoomed in on his face to reveal his obvious discomfort.

"Why worry about your diarrhoea attack coming back?" said a comforting voice. The golfer looked up. "With just one dose of Imodium, you could stop diarrhoea and get on with your day." He smiled cheerily and sank his putt. Is it common for golfers to get diarrhoea attacks just as they're about to putt?

Back to Richard in the studio and it was time for highlights of the previous night's gala dinner. A string of Ryder Cup stars arrived with their partners, but the waiting photographers were only interested in who would accompany Tiger Woods. Cindy Crawford? Naomi Campbell? Gabriella Sabatini? No. His other half was 40ish, chubby, could have done with a shave and was balding on top. Mark O'Meara, Tiger's US team mate. "Evening. This is my date," grinned O'Meara, as the dejected paparazzi packed their bags and headed for home. We got to see a full repeat of the gala dinner and highlights of the equestrian display on Friday AND Saturday morning, as Richard desperately struggled to fill the rain-filled hours with something, anything. He had been up at five in the morning, was on air at seven, but had no golf to show us for another three hours.

"We want to see some golf, don't we? That's why we're here," he moaned. Bernard nodded again. There were only so many times he could talk about how much he enjoyed captaining Europe to victory in the Ryder Cup at Oak Hill. By 6.30 p.m. when play finally finished, Richard was exhausted - and Bernard was close to nodding off in his chair. Seve Ballesteros seemed a bit disoriented himself. "It's been a long day. I've been up since six o'clock and it's now nine o'clock, it's nearly breakfast time," he said.

Next morning. "Guess what?" said Richard. "It's raining. There's a bit of deja vu about the place. It's bucketing down." Meanwhile, Bernard was busy counting the seconds between the claps of thunder and flashes of lightning and when they began arriving at around the same time, he stared nervously at the roof of the prefabricated studio.

"You know what," concluded Richard at the end of day two. "There's been three teams impressive in action here today - Europe, the United States and Sky Sports - and only Sky Sports could have delivered a day like this, we'll see you tomorrow morning bright and early," he said modestly. But he was right, ONLY Sky Sports could have delivered hours of live coverage of thunderstorms. Earlier, to pass the time and help take his mind off imminent death, Richard asked Bernard about the pairing of Per Ulrik Johannsson and Jesper Parnevik. "The Swedes? They're sort of dour people, they keep their heads down, don't really say much," he said, which suggests he might be hired by Eastenders to write the script for Pauline Fowler's trip to Stockholm when she visits her long-lost brother.

You know, the Eastenders people probably even think we paint our sheep in the colours of our counties in the build-up to an All Ireland final. Ha, imagine? (What's that? Last week on telly? A farmer from Knock, Co Mayo who had painted his flock red and green? Bloody Eastenders. What? It was the RTE news? Oh.)