The Interminable Build-up: farcically OTT ads, ludicrously hyperbolic TV promos, risible marketing guff from Golf Ireland, Failte Ireland and endless reruns of the great gaisci of the Homeric Irish Ryder Cup legends as well as 150 zillion hours of archive-raiding How We Won the Ryder Cup fillers from Sky Sport, your exclusive RC station. Yes we suffered.

Thursday 2.30pm. With outrageous chutzpah (aka brass-necked temerity) RTE, "the station that takes you close to the action" (albeit five hours later) steals a march on Sky and all the other Delayed Broadcast Stations (DBS) by going on air and bringing us that doyen of golf pundits . . . Bill O' Herlihy.

Billo introduced his guests . . . Graeme McDowell and Tony Jacklin who was clearly chuffed with the retro nature of RTE's broadcast as it gave him aeons to expatiate upon the good ole days when he just happened to be RC captain.

As for Graeme he'd talk for Ireland, Europe, O2 or Vodafone. Billo tries to make Graeme miserable about missing out on the RC but the man was unfazed though not unphrased. This man talks.

Time to see the venue for the opening panto-pageant. RTE, the station that takes you closest to the action, zooms in on a giant golf ball. Given that the feed was from Sky Sports this was no mean achievement since Sky Sports, with its vaunted 125 cameras, 25 outside broadcast vans, 10 satellite uplink vehicles, 45 TV production cabins and 30 camera towers and Higher Definition thingey would fail dismally to spot instantly one golf ball for the first day of action.

3pm. Martial music, big images, Sam's trophy juxtaposed with pints of Guinness. It must be Sky. David Livingstone and the pin-striped set. David introduces the MC for the ceremony as Sharon Knee Violin. And sure enough there is a woman on a fiddle and then a stunningly subtle interpretation of the Book of Kells by Duffy's Circus. By the time the daughters of Maeve are doing the swing dance of the Mashie Niblick everyone has left, the 125 cameras have failed to locate Arnold Palmer and the Apres Match team finds it impossible to upstage that display of neo-Celto-terpsichorean folly.

Friday. 7am. Sky Sports 1. After a rough night the nation awakes and cries Alleluia! Not because it is finally starting but because in our innocence we believe that Those Ads are finito. Forever. But, no.

Those Ads haven't gone away at all and have been joined by some very leggy Newbridge ones. And lots of ads for Portuguese golf which seems very enticing . . . especially in view of the dire weather. So much for marketing Irish golf.

As the gladiators enter, one ear-splitting stentorian roar after another goes up.

Padraig nearly disappears into his smile and then as the decibels reach bleedingears level, here comes Darren. A throatbursting, larynx-pulverising, profoundly emotional cry erupts from 40,000 hearts and lungs. Darren didn't know whether to laugh or cry . . . so he bombed one 330 yards, licked on the green and brushed it in. The guy's got class as well as guts.

He won his point too, on the 18th as the Yanks revealed their corporate leanings by having the decency to stage their defeats on the home hole in downtown Corporateville.

Through day one Sky tried manfully to be neutral and Nick Faldo had the grace to apologise for saying 'we' in relation to the Europeans. There were no such restraints on the Delayed Action Stations. Shane O'Donoghue shrilly partisan with his cries of the 'go Padraig go' variety. The ball only listens to Garcia, Shane.

Friday. Sky Live 7am. Usual Oirish guff from Livingstone about Irish eyes smiling. Everything was blue except the sky. "The weather is a big story this week, " said Livingstone, employing a form of understatement not usually associated with Sky Sports.

Bruce Critchley was more pungent . . . as Padraig took the stentorian ovation from the crowd at the 1st tee while the rain bucketed down: "his country, his weather." Later Critch helpfully assured us that, "that is not the rain falling, it is the waterfall near the 15th green." We did wonder. Those Portuguese golf ads got more appealing by the hour.

Critch was lucky to get in a word because Nick Faldo can talk. Boy can he talk. You could go to golf school after just listening to him. Here's a suggestion for your 2008 captaincy Nick . . . just keep talking. And appoint Graeme McDowell as assistant. The Yanks will be raising the white flag by mid-morning Friday. And fleeing to Canada or asking Canada to join them. Maybe they should enlist South Africa and Fiji too.

Now please take Those Ads off. Okay you can leave the Newbridge leggies.