Sky Sports reporter James Haddock goes behind the scenes ahead of the Ryder Cup at Hazeltine
By James Haddock, Sky Sports News HQ
Last Updated: 28/09/16 10:42pm
In his latest column, Sky Sports News HQ's James Haddock describes the mood around Hazeltine and goes behind the scenes to follow Europe's Ryder Cup preparation.
The reality is starting to hit home ahead of this Ryder Cup, not least for the players. The teams have all now arrived in town and checked into their shared hotel base for the week and there was a real sense of excitement from them all, on both sides.
Team Europe arrived in two buses from the airport after their charter flight from London. The first one brought the players who were looking pretty fresh, their partners alongside them, and there was a smile breaking across each of their faces as they were greeted by team officials.
This was a moment they'd all been waiting for, to get to the hotel and check into their room where they will have found their Team Europe uniforms for the week laid out. They will also most likely, as tradition in recent Ryder Cup events, have found a goodie bag from their captain. This will contain gifts chosen for the players from their leader.
Justin Rose was laughing with anticipation ahead of finding out what awaited him, telling me "if Darren's had anything to do with it I'm expecting to find a cashmere sweater or two in there!"
Rose wasn't expecting to see Bubba Watson strolling past into the hotel midway through our interview. The Olympic champion did well to break the news of Watson's appointment onto the American staff, still an hour before Davis Love III would formally announce the appointment of Bubba as a vice-captain!
Another deputy on Team USA arrived in relaxed mood, as the lone passenger in a courtesy car. Tiger Woods has grown a little extra facial hair, while his physical form appears to have shrunk a little. He stopped to talk with me about Arnold Palmer, his friend, who sadly passed away the night before.
Flags remain at half-mast outside the clubhouse in respect of Palmer, a huge signing board has been erected out the merchandise tent for fans to write their messages of condolences and Hazeltine have ordered in thousands of "I'm a member of Arnie's Army" pin badges to hand out to fans. Mr Palmer will not be forgotten or left out of proceedings this week in Minnesota.
This is a busy week for the team members - practice, press conferences, team meetings, gala dinner, opening ceremony, etc. They won't get too much time to themselves.
The course had softened up after plenty of recent rain, especially over the weekend. From tee to green the place looks in great condition and the greens will get quicker each day - just as Davis Love III wants.
As with most Ryder Cups this will largely come down to which team can putt the best. It could be a big week on the greens for all the players.
Now it's getting closer and closer though to see who will be putting their colour on the leader boards, will they be turning red or blue? Well maybe there's a little good omen for the blue of Europe on that note.
On Monday during technical tests the screens on the practice range pulled up a list of various blank matches for scoring, while a smaller screen will be used for the overall match score. The individual matches were all blank. The score screen showed USA 13 ½ Europe 14 ½.
Edging closer
Team photo day is always a big moment for the players at the start of any Ryder Cup week, marching out onto the course en masse for a series of group and individual pictures.
For one individual it was a confusing time this year, Tiger Woods had to twice be moved away from the USA Team players' picture and reminded he's not a player this time around! He laughed it off, saluted the photographer's instructions and wore a huge smile.
The European caddies were in party mood during the visitors' photo session as they laughed, danced and sang together while the players had their group shots taken. Then they joined in for a picture with their bosses, knelt down in front of the players' bags and, as usual, someone started pushing around so they all fell over (Billy Foster seems to get the blame for this most often!).
These events draw a huge crowd of TV crews and photographers, this time around was no different. However, while the European team went first and held a sizeable number of attendees, when the Americans came out to the same place half an hour later more than half of the attending media had gone off elsewhere. Maybe Europe is the big story this week?
It was the complete opposite with regards the crowd trying to see what was going on. A few dozen were present during Europe's photo, but hundreds were four or five rows deep behind the fairway ropes for the USA photo and already chanting "USA USA".
There were chants aplenty of "Go get 'em Phil" and screams for Bubba and Tiger, with the crowd being urged to play a part as the 13th man this week. Let's just hope they don't take it too far, leaving us with a Brookline atmosphere to deal with.
The main thing to deal with so far has been the temperature, which in the mornings has been hovering at around 10-12 degrees with a wind chill that takes it way down into single figures and below.
High winds have been blowing through the early part of the week too - ripping the roof off of the opening ceremony stage on Monday. But, it has helped dry the course out after plenty of rain recently. Thankfully, there's not too much of that forecast for the rest of the week.
It means both team may well be wearing their waterproof jackets just to keep warm under an added layer. The Europeans have gone high end with their clothing. Cashmere jumpers are standard issue for the team and the waterproofs feature cutting edge material to try and help give them an edge.
It's only the clothing, but making the players comfortable is a big deal. It's one of many things which may provide the slight edge psychologically for the players. Everything is done to make sure that mentally and physically they feel just right, that they feel 100 per cent ready for the battle ahead.
From the way the team room is dressed in blue and gold to the seating arrangement in the locker room and the motivational speeches, they all help fuel Europe's desire to win as a team and get their hands on the Samuel Ryder trophy on Sunday night.
