Europe can silence bearpit and keep Cup

Those tempted to dismiss the emotive pull of the Ryder Cup, or its capacity to surprise, were given their ultimate rebuke on the eve of golf's greatest team event, a day which saw the sport's most famously impassive character reduced to tears by the presence of The Greatest.
"It was really special. It really was," said an emotional Nick Faldo after he, his American counterpart Paul Azinger and their players met Muhammad Ali, who had made the short trip from his home in Louisville, Kentucky, to Valhalla golf club.
This has been a torrid week for the European captain, who has been less than comfortable in the glare that comes with the job, although he claimed yesterday he was "having the time of his life". Like his insistence that the pairings he inadvertently revealed earlier in the week constituted a "lunch list" (they matched the foursomes line-up for this morning, albeit in a different order), this was hard to believe. Faldo will be delighted to switch from the emotional to the practical - a state where he has spent the entirety of his professional life.
Azinger was not about to hide his relief the sparring was over. "It's like drawing back a bow string," he said. "For two years I've been pulling that string back and now I have got to let the arrow go. I just hope I've pointed it in the right direction." The US captain might have been less cheerful in private, especially after looking at the challenge confronting his players today, when his best pairing of Phil Mickelson and Anthony Kim tee off against Padraig Harrington and Robert Karlsson in the opening foursomes. It promises to be a tight match but, totemic as it might seem, it would wise not to assign it too much weight. Tiger Woods and Jim Furyk defeated Harrington and Colin Montgomerie in the opening contest last time round and much good that did the US squad.