Valhalla awaits golf’s gods

Golf's biennial transatlantic grudge match isn't a time for understatement. Two years ago in Ireland, beaming after his European team had outclassed America for their fifth win in the last six editions of the Ryder Cup, tubby Welsh captain Ian Woosnam described what he'd just experienced as "the greatest weekend in history". Four years ago, asked what his European teammates thought of their opponents, Paul Casey replied: "Oh, we properly hate them".

Now the hyperbole moves on to the Valhalla Country Club in Louisville, Kentucky, which should have recovered from Hurricane Ike (it felled a TV tower on the 12th and uprooted some trees).

The choice of captains this time round - lone wolf Nick Faldo (right) and cancer survivor Paul Azinger - will do nothing to calm things down.

The pair have feuded ever since the American took umbrage with Faldo's lack of grace in winning the 1987 Open, and Azinger recently called his opposite number a "prick". "The bottom line is that the players from his generation and mine really don't want to have anything to do with him," said Azinger.

If anything can dim the brouhaha, perhaps it's the absentees. The great Tiger Woods, never the most enthusiastic Ryder Cup team man, is still recovering from an operation on his left knee. Short of form, Europe's talisman Colin Montgomerie won’t be able to resume his longstanding battle against the noisy, fidgeting American galleries. And Darren Clarke, who last time round played so well so soon after his wife had died, also failed to make the cut.

Faldo has deliberately gone for a young team - he's even ordered a couple of drum kits to keep