As I was sitting in traffic, there was a little song going through my head. My middle-born son is devoted to AA Milne's Winnie The Pooh, his favourite character is Tigger. Tigger has a song, and it goes something like this: "The wonderful thing about tiggers is tiggers are wonderful things; their tops are made out of rubber, their bottoms are made out of springs;

they are bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy; fun, fun, fun, fun, fun; but the most wonderful thing about tiggers is I'm the only one." There are two tiggers that I know, one in the cartoon and one who is playing golf in the K Club over the weekend. The tigger who is playing golf in Ireland this weekend is the supreme predator/competitor, and with an outer body experience which ran into the surreal where I was able to follow him around the fairways, standing no more than a couple of feet away from him at times, I don't think he was enjoying his weekend as much as I was, and if the truth be known the guy is anything but bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun. But most undoubtedly, he is the only one. There is nothing like him in the world of golf and arguably in the higher sporting plane and that is one of the problems which has dogged this American team over the last five or six Ryder Cups, and something which Tom Lehman was at pains to try and assuage. It was almost like trying to find the Holy Grail, try and get team spirit and team unity going in the United States' camp. Most of their team are creatures of habit and that habit is me, me, me, me, and it is extremely difficult to walk out of that mindset and turn into us, us, us, us, us.

I saw during the week that Tiger had taken the four US rookies JJ Henry, Zak Johnson, Scott Wetterich and Chad Campbell for a pint and a burger. I bet you they didn't have pints.

I'd love to have been a fly on the wall for that outing. It just seems a tiny bit contrived. Woods stands out and is seen as the United States' onfield captain. Was it of his own volition or did Lehman suggest it to him? Either way, it would be very hard to achieve the right result from his intended plan. It would be like Brian O'Driscoll asking a few lads out from Creggs RFC and saying "we're all the same lads, we're all just regular guys, we're a team." The boys from Creggs would have told O'Driscoll where to go. It is a big problem to have such sporting magnificence try and blend into your mundane existence. Having said that, JJ Henry seems to have announced his arrival on the golfing world, in spectacular form at this tournament.

It is a sad fact of life that if Woods does not take a full five points from the five matches that he's played in, he has failed. It is interesting to observe his game face. It hasn't changed from the one that you see on the television which again is purely about the singular. Watching his immediate opponents, Harrington/Montgomerie, and Clarke/Westwood, there was a symbiotic chemistry, almost symmetry, between the two and their game face said it all.

In essence, this really isn't a team game at all. They say it is, but really it's not. But if you make the most out of the team section of this competition, then you certainly do have an advantage. Golfers, by definition, have to be selfish bastards. I don't mean that in the pejorative sense, but it's the only way you can operate.

They are very different people to soccer or rugby players. If you stick a bunch of Formula One drivers, tennis players, golf players, rugby players and soccer players into a room, the rugby and soccer players would all gravitate towards each other. It's just a team thing.

As an extension of the superstar status, I spent most of yesterday walking no more than two or three feet away from Michael Jordan.

It was an incredible feeling. This guy would have been the greatest sporting presence on the planet. He was here to watch the Ryder Cup, or was he? He was here to watch Tiger, because he had been watching Tiger on Friday, yesterday and today. He ain't here to watch Zak Johnson. The elite of the elite, in the same way that Tiger Woods was in Roger Federer's box at the US Open, the superstars gravitate towards the superstars. When this happens, what do the team think? Having said that, I was still drawn to watch Tiger every day and I have to say also that I was starstruck. I said hello to Michael Jordan. My only sense of satisfaction in terms of anything was that I was actually bigger than him. His handshake though belied to me that he was much much stronger than me and his grip dwarfed mine, but you knew that with a man of his size that he had soft hands and those fingers had performed miracles in his time. Like a gobshite, I tried literally to follow in his footsteps, his feet being probably two inches longer than mine. I was caught by an American camera crew who were watching me watching him. The reason it looked silly was because his stride pattern was much longer than mine.

Inside in the media tent, there was a scrap for the red bibs which give you access to all areas. I was inside the ropes and I could walk literally as close as I wanted to any of the players. It was a great feeling. It was also quite edifying to soak up some of the warmth, goodwill, bravado and sheer roar from the highly supportive crowd.

It was funny to hear some of the people behind the ropes sort of mutter as George H Bush (right) drove by and they'd say in a whispered tone, "There's Bush, " and then Michael Jordan would saunter by, more reverential tones, and then the Frange would amble by, the recognising would be less reverential. "What's that big useless gobshite doing out there on the course?" But most of the calls were, "There's Franno." It was incredible the amount of people that I knew at this event.

I couldn't think of anything to say to Michael Jordan about his buddy. You can't really say to him, "Jaysus, Tiger is playing like a bad day in Moyross." Two shocking misses on the eighth and the ninth in the morning fourballs said it all. He'd never do that in strokeplay when he was playing for himself. He needed a crutch. Jim Furyk provided it on Friday but was helpless to assist his partner yesterday.

Darren Clarke also had a crutch. Lee Westwood played astonishingly well on Friday and yesterday. I saw him play in the Portuguese Open three or four years ago. I sat behind an elevated tee as he sliced the ball horrifically into some trees. He shouted out, "F**king, f**king, f**king 'ell, " in his rich Yorkshire accent and the ball took a huge hop off a rock and jumped up into the air again, and he laughed out loud on his way to an 88 and an early lift home that weekend. Westwood has had his demons and it is just one of the great stories of this weekend that, as a captain's choice, he could provide such support for Clarke and play a major role in Europe's ascendancy thus far. As for Clarke, once again Inismore, the 16th, proved good for the Europeans.

I was no more than two yards away from Clarke as he pitched in and if I could paraphrase Alfred Tennyson: as the ball stood still for a second, as it waited to take arbitrary direction, "Break, break, break on thy cold sandy green, Clarkie, and I would that my tongue could utter the thoughts that arise in me." My thoughts: you bee. . . you. . . t-y.

You couldn't have scripted it better. Courage is grace under pressure.