For the past few days, anyone who has cast an eye over the bottom half of America's Ryder Cup team as it currently stands has probably been asking exactly the same thing.

Not that JJ Henry, Zach Johnson, Brett Wetterich, Vaughn Taylor and Lucas Glover have exactly made any waves at this major championship . . . in fact, only Taylor managed to make the cut . . .but they were all here, and with just four events remaining before the US line-up is finalised, they could all well be at the K Club in September.

"I'm not afraid of taking an inexperienced bunch of guys to play, " said a defiant Tom Lehman recently. "They have something to prove, I like that." But in terms of pitching five newcomers . . . a couple of whom had never even set foot outside the States before last week . . . into the competitive cauldron that the Ryder Cup has become, Lehman appears to be redefining inexperience.

Of his five greenhorns, not one has played the K Club, and only Johnson and Glover have ever been to Ireland before. Taylor recently felt the need to apply for a passport which he had stamped for the first time on landing at Manchester airport before travelling on to Hoylake, and as for matchplay and its psychological intricacies, Lehman might well have to sit his rookies down for a crash course. Johnson calls reaching the semi-finals of this season's WGC Accenture Championship a "huge confidence boost" as prior to Davis Love ending his run at La Costa, he had only played one matchplay game in his career.

Asked for his views on the Ryder Cup's hand-to-hand format, Taylor was unequivocal. "Never played matchplay. Ever."

While the scorched earth of Hoylake's links, and the predisposition of women they've never met before to refer to them as "love", have been part of the culture shock, the more lush surrounds of the Arnold Palmer-designed K Club could perversely turn out to be more of a home from home.

However, with Henrik Stenson of Sweden currently the solitary first-timer, Europe, as Ian Woosnam has already bullishly pointed out, have a "big advantage".

America will look to Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Jim Furyk, Chad Campbell and David Toms to lead from the front, but it his hard to envisage the tail wagging the dog.

As things stand, Lehman could find himself in charge of one of the weakest US teams in history.

"It's premature to say that, " suggests Henry, a 31-year-old from Connecticut who has jumped up the points table into sixth place following his maiden PGA Tour victory earlier this month at the Buick Championship. "Okay, there are a lot of young players who haven't had a whole lot of experience of European golf, and people don't know a lot about them, but at some point you've got to play in your first Ryder Cup. Maybe it's a good thing to have so many rookies. It hasn't worked out for the US the last couple of times, so if we have some rookies who are hungry, who knows?"

Although he freely admits he doesn't know what to expect when the gun goes at the K Club, Henry comes across by some way as the most confident of America's unknown quintet. "I played quite a bit of matchplay when I was at college in Texas and I think I won four or five events, so I don't think I'll be intimidated. I love that sort of arena, I love that atmosphere, that's why we play the game.

I like feeling nervous, especially in matchplay and I hate to lose, so I think I'd be a great addition to the team."

No matter what polite noises they make, seasoned match players such as Colin Montgomerie, Jose Maria Olazabal, Sergio Garcia and Padraig Harrington are hardly likely to have any sleepless nights during their preparations for the K Club. While knowledge of an opponent's game, his strengths and weaknesses, can be a factor in the heat of the Ryder Cup, Europe have precious little to go on if they study the form of the US hopefuls.

Already talked up by Lehman as someone with a chip-on-the-shoulder attitude which could lend itself to the demands of matchplay, Taylor is not perturbed being dubbed an unknown. "I've never really received a lot of attention, which is fine, " he says. "I always tend to kind of fly under the radar. Every weekend in the US, people don't even know who I am, so it doesn't bother me."

A native of Augusta, Georgia, but very much a product of the local municipal courses rather than the exclusive Augusta National, 30year-old Taylor is currently ninth in the points list after a series of top-10 finishes this season, and unlike the others, he squeezed into the weekend on the one-underpar cut mark following rounds of 72 and 71.

"I probably don't quite understand the extent of the Ryder Cup, but I suppose it'll hit me if I get there. I pride myself on being a tough competitor, and I'm not going to be intimidated by the fact Europe are the favourites.

On any given day, I can compete with anyone on their team."

Although the links terrain here is about as familiar as warm beer to the young Americans, at least over the past few days they have had the sun on their backs. There is absolutely no guarantee of such benign conditions come September. "Look, if you want it the American way, don't leave America, " says Johnson, who played in the American Express Championship at Mount Juliet two years ago, and is the most experienced of Lehman's possible rookies.

But then you remind him that the Ryder Cup will be staged on a course which has infinitely more in common with a PGA Tour stop than anything that's traditionally Irish. "Actually, I was a little bit shocked when I found out that it was going to be played on a Palmer design, still I've heard it's going to be a great matchplay course."

Johnson, ranked 36th in the world and at the moment in seventh place in the points list, played a practice round earlier in the week with Lehman. "We talked about the Ryder Cup here and there, I certainly picked his brains and he picked mine a little bit. It's true the team looks very inexperienced at the moment, but I still believe we're going to send 12 guys to Ireland who are more than capable of winning the cup."

For someone who came from nowhere to win this year's Byron Nelson Championship, who has already earned more than $2m and whose world ranking has gone from 294 to 54, Wetterich doesn't appear to be overly-energised by all the current Ryder Cup speculation.

Henry talks about having goose bumps when Lehman spoke passionately about the event at a players' party in early May, but Wetterich is probably not the goosebumps type. "No, don't know anything about the K Club, and no, I've no experience of matchplay. It would be an honour to play in it, but I don't think it really matters whether it's in the States or in Europe, whoever plays the best golf wins."

Lehman probably wasn't overly-surprised that the inexperienced half of his team struggled here. Taylor scraped through, but Henry, Johnson, Wetterich and Glover all missed the cut, and if Chris DiMarco's resurgence struck a positive chord with the captain, there were disappointing performances from several players close to qualification.

Davis Love, Fred Couples, Tim Herron, Tom Pernice, Arron Oberholser and Stewart Cink . . . currently occupying places 11 to 16 in the standings . . . also failed to make it through to the weekend.

Although America's unheralded quintet had the opportunity for some exposure these past few days, the question essentially remains the same.

"Who are those guys?"