A few hours earlier, USA prefaced its coverage with a quote from Irish philosopher John Pentland Mahafee: "In Ireland the inevitable never happens and the unexpected constantly occurs." What was unexpected was USA and its parent company NBC's ridiculous decision to present the following two days of golf in a tape-delay format known as "as live". Despite the best efforts of all involved, the sight of Tiger Woods and Jim Furyk on the first tee wasn't the slightest bit exhilarating to those of us who'd earlier discovered over on ESPN News that they'd already defeated Padraig Harrington and Colin Montgomerie.

Unfortunately, this is the way of it with televised sport in America. They do it with the Olympics. They do it with Wimbledon.

Rather than joining the matches in progress and going live for the rest of Friday and Saturday, they went back to the very start both mornings. Forgetting the very essence of sport is the unpredictability of watching it unfold before our eyes, they prefer to pretend we live in a world with no internet, no other sports channels, and no thricehourly updates on radio. Instead of providing a service to die-hard golf fans . . . most of whom would have went looking for the results of the morning sessions the minute they got out of bed . . . everything is geared towards luring in casual viewers by presenting ersatz live coverage.

Of what they did show, almost 25 minutes had elapsed before the cameras left the Woods' group that teed off the event on the first day. This was in keeping with the first principle of American golf broadcasting: the world number one must be on screen as much as possible. No matter what happens. How funny that the commentators continually harped on about the unique team nature of the Ryder Cup yet their cameras lingered on every Tiger pre-shot routine or post-shot expression.

In typical style, everything involving Tiger's game was exaggerated. When his partner Furyk stepped up to win that very first hole it was described as a "knock-out punch". Only 17 holes and, eh, 27 other games to play but already Monty, Pawdregg and Europe were apparently on the carpet.

To be fair, Friday and yesterday's marathon broadcasts were largely and thankfully free of paddywhackery. In an era when a lot of Americans haven't yet cottoned on to the new reality of Celtic Tiger Ireland there was just a single gratuitous mention of Riverdance, only one horrific attempt at an Irish accent, and merely a passing glance at the Guinness brewery.

There was a welcome dignity too about the handling of Darren Clarke's story, the network somehow resisting the national tendency to wallow in the maudlin. However, at last count, they had mentioned Tiger hugging Clarke on the practice tee earlier in the week at least six times.

Throughout the coverage, Johnny Miller and his colleagues punctuated every lament about the awful weather with eulogising of the Irish spectators. If they weren't "highly partisan but very polite", they were "so knowledgeable and informed". Strangely enough, the praise they were getting on television for being "truly appreciative of the game" and authors of "the loudest roars some of us have heard" was matched by criticism on American radio. A pair of sports talk show hosts in New York lambasted the crowd for their lack of passion and intensity. Obviously, they didn't get the UN memo about Ireland boasting the best fans in the world at everything.

For all that, it was frustrating to have to endure an informed pundit like Miller talking up something that had already taken place. As NBC's coverage of the morning matches began at 8am yesterday . . . watch the US try to eat into the 5-3 deficit! . . . Europe's freshly-gained 7-3 lead had already flashed up on other channels. As Chris DiMarco and Phil Mickelson walked purposefully to the first tee, we knew they'd been soundly defeated. Ditto with Woods and Furyk moments later. Nothing like knowing the scores before you sit down to watch 18 holes.

This morning's singles will be the only facet of this Ryder Cup shown live on American television. What a rare treat.