However, six months from now, the tranquillity will be shattered when as many as 180,000 spectators crane for a view of the 36th Ryder Cup matches. Beyond the confines of the K Club, a television audience of approximately one billion will soak up the drama of a team contest which has grown from a once predictable sideshow into high theatre.

It doesn't seem to matter that the gladiators wear garish polo shirts, and that some people have already spent a chunk of their SSIAs in order to sample a unique atmosphere, September's confrontation between the best players from Europe and America will even drag in golf 's non-believers.

There are estimates of a financial boost to the Irish economy of between 130m and 140m, and while a few rip-off merchants are bound to benefit disproportionately, stories of exorbitant prices for accommodation won't compromise what is likely to be another compelling episode in one of sport's great rivalries. If today there are no grandstands at the K Club, no tented village, no corporate entertainment areas, no media facilities and while further afield, the tangled mess of the N7 might not augur well for the fleets of buses which will bring spectators to Straffan . . . cars will be banned from an eight-kilometre cordon around the venue . . . preparation work is at an advanced stage.

"You can't say for sure that one event is going to be bigger and better than the next, " says Ryder Cup director, Richard Hills, "but I've been involved with the matches since 1981 and the level of interest I've already sensed in Ireland has been exceptional.

"In planning something like this you just keep going through the 'what if ' scenario.

There's a lot of second-guessing, a lot of answers to questions that might or might not arise, we're trying to get round every conceivable contingency."

Hills and his team's preparation has involved the study of past weather patterns in Ireland during September, but he also remembers that none of the historical data for the south-west corner of Spain predicted the thunderstorms which hit Valderrama on the opening day in 1997.

Not surprisingly, the K Club's head greenkeeper, Gerry Byrne, sees the vagaries of the weather as probably his main challenge.

"We're actually preparing the golf course for a wet week, so anything else will be a bonus.

We've tried to peak the Palmer course in September for the past three years with the Ryder Cup in mind. We know we're in the top three or four venues in Europe, we know we can get to a high standard quite easily because it's second nature to us, and we've also known about the Ryder Cup for long enough now. So we really couldn't be better prepared with six months to go."

While the European Tour, which controls the Ryder Cup when it is staged on this side of the Atlantic, was not prepared to give Ian Woosnam carte blanche to engage in a costly redesign of the K Club, he was always going to be allowed to tweak the course to the advantage of his team.

So, every hole has been modified to a greater or lesser extent following his recommendations last year. New greens have been built at the par-three 12th and the parfive 16th, new tees have been added to the seventh and 13th holes, while the planting of mature trees at six holes, most notably numbers 16 and 17, has made for much more demanding tee shots.

"Woosnam felt that Tiger Woods and a few of the Americans would be better equipped to carry some of the doglegs, whereas the Europeans would probably have to play the holes as they were designed, " says Byrne. "So, we put tall, mature trees into what we call the turning points of some holes in order to hurt the longer hitters, and now if a player wants to cut the corner, he's going to have to carry a certain amount of trouble."

If Woosnam also challenged the big hitters by adding two bunkers to the right-hand side of the signature 18th hole . . .

which is certain to decide several matches . . . the introduction of tightly-mown swales, or collection areas, around as many as eight greens might just be the most significant alternation to the course.

Whereas the K Club has traditionally had deepish rough at the edges of the greens lending itself to the flop shot, Woosnam felt that sort of set-up might have given the Americans an advantage. "Now with the swales, there's a choice of three shots, either the putter, a pitch-and-run, or a flop shot off a tight lie, " says Byrne.

"Because many of the greens are raised, they're suitable for these run-offs which have actually given the course more of an Irish feel."

Although no formal dates have yet been agreed on, Woosnam and several of his players will be making visits to the course once the Europe team begins to emerge, while Tom Lehman and some of his players are also likely to spend a couple of days at the K Club around the time of the British Open in mid-July.

"Obviously, the Europeans have lost the fear-factor that used to be prevalent in the Ryder Cup, they're on a high at the moment, they're familiar with the K Club from the Smurfit European Open, and they're also more used to the conditions you might get in September, " says John McHenry, the resort's Director of Golf. "They know the winds, they know how the ball will fly, and so in a tight match the European player should have a slight advantage."

After a K Club delegation had returned from the 2004 matches at Oakland Hills, there was a feeling that the task of staging a Ryder Cup would be more daunting than had been anticipated. McHenry believes that while no one was ever under the illusion that it was going to be anything other than a huge event, what they saw at Oakland Hills concentrated minds.

"We knew that a lot of questions were going to be asked of us, but the golf course is already set up, and we've really been working intensively for three years on this. I wouldn't like to talk about the venue being superior to the Belfry or anything like that, but I will say that the finishing stretch we have is hard to equal. It's very demanding, a guy could be two down with five to play and comfortably win his match. You look at holes 16, 17 and 18, and it's hard to find a stronger finish on any golf course."

The Palmer course closes to visitors in early August, and will be off-limits to members just over three weeks before the players arrive.

Meanwhile, Hills' visits to Straffan will increase from the current rate of once a fortnight to once a week from May, and his team of organisers will be on the site full-time from late June.

Byrne will see his greenkeeping staff mushroom from an average of 25 to 75 for the week of the matches. "With six months to go now, my role is not to panic, " he says.

"When you're dealing with nature, you can't afford to panic. The first focus is the European Open on the Smurfit course in early July, and after that we'll gradually begin to turn the heat up on the Palmer course.

"The weather will be a major factor in determining the speed of the greens, and while my job is to produce the finest surfaces that I can, in the end, the speed will be Woosnam's call. With two days' notice, I can give him what he wants."

With a few steps still to take before qualification, Padraig Harrington says he doesn't want to talk about the Ryder Cup at the moment, but with the clock ticking, the K Club can't afford that luxury. "If you look at the bigger business picture, " says McHenry, "it's actually only one week, but we know how important that week is. We want to host the best Ryder Cup of all time, and we believe we can do it."

Roll on September.