ESPN 2008 Ryder Cup

Throughout this week, ESPN.com golf writer Jason Sobel will be live blogging from the 37th Ryder Cup, bringing you inside information and analysis from Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky. Refresh this page often to keep track of all entries.

Have a question or comment for Sobel? E-mail him at rydercupblog@gmail.com.

4:30 p.m.: We're now officially playing the Waiting Game.

Every player has gone around Valhalla in a couple of practice rounds. They've all made their tour of duty in the interview room. Each guy has a pretty good idea of when he'll be playing and whom he'll be paired with.

And now?

All we can do is sit and wait until Thursday's opening ceremonies, when the first four matches will be announced sometime around 5:30 p.m. ET.

I'll be right here, breaking 'em down in the blog, so check back throughout the day Thursday and, of course, early and often Friday, Saturday and Sunday, once the competition officially gets under way. Until then, hit 'em straight …

4:16 p.m.: E-mail from Brian in Charlottesville, Va.:

When talking about the four guys who would play twice on Friday you had Cink or Perry as the fourth. I'd respectfully disagree, and say that Mahan is better than either of those guys. Cink is not playing all that well at the moment, and Mahan has ice water running through his veins. I remember some of the putts he holed against Stricker at the Accenture Match Play, before succumbing in 20 holes. He's also much younger, and in better shape than Perry, which means he's probably better for 36 holes in a day.

Interesting call. I'm already on record (No. 10) as saying Mahan has more raw talent than anyone on the team other than Phil Mickelson and Anthony Kim, so I don't necessarily disagree with you.

The part of this e-mail that really caught my attention, however, was the mention of Perry possibly having to play 36 in one day. After winning the Memorial Tournament earlier this year, the 48-year-old Perry chose not to compete in a 36-hole U.S. Open qualifier the next day, saying, "I'm not going to 36-hole qualify. To me, that just is too much now. I just don't like it."

That said, it's not as if Perry can't go 36 holes. In fact, he did so just two weeks ago at the BMW Championship, shooting 72-68 in the second and third rounds on Saturday of that week. Will be interesting to see whether Azinger gives him the green light for double duty on one -- or both -- of the first two days this week.

4 p.m.: Aggravating note of the week: Every time I type S�ren Hansen's name, I've got to figure out a way to put the "�" in S�ren.

What does it mean? According to Wikipedia:

• In modern Danish, Faroese, and Norwegian, the letter is a monophthongal close-mid front rounded vowel, the IPA symbol for which is also [�]. To non-rhotic English speakers, the vowel it sounds most like is the vowel in "bird" or "hurt". Like so many vowels, it has slight variations of the quality called "light" (in Danish s�ster ("sister") pronounced like eu in French bleu) and "dark" (in Danish "m�rke" ("darkness") pronounced similarly to i of English bird); compare light and dark a in English hat and far.
• However, in the Su�uroy-dialect of Faroese short � is pronounced [�].
• The name of this letter is the same as the sound it represents. Speakers of languages which use the letter � hold that it is not a ligature or a diacritical variant of the letter o (That is, emically they perceive it as a different letter entirely). Though not its native name, among English-speaking typographers the symbol may be called a "slashed o" or "o with stroke".
• '�' is equivalent to the vowel and letter '�' in the Icelandic, Swedish and Finnish alphabets and languages.
• The letter � is also used in the orthographies of some African languages such as Lendu spoken in Congo-Kinshasa and Koonzime spoken in Cameroon.

And then there's this:

The letter "�" is sometimes used in mathematics as a replacement for the symbol "" (Unicode character U+2205), referring to the empty set as established by Bourbaki. The "" symbol is always drawn as a slashed circle, whereas in most typefaces the letter "�" is a slashed ellipse.

If Hansen goes winless this week, you can expect to hear more about the "empty set."

3:50 p.m.: E-mail from Brian in Louisville (and no, I'm not soliciting e-mails only from locals this week):

What is the proper etiquette about heckling and cheering out at the Ryder Cup? Are we allowed to [heckle] after every shot the Euros hit or just after we take a hole of them? And if we can cheer and taunt whenever, shouldn't Azinger try to put the Kentucky guys out there with Sergio since we know most of the crowd will be following them?

I'm of the mind that as long as you're respectful and don't make any noise during anyone's backswing or while they're putting, the periods in between are fair game. That said, if the gallery really wants to be the "13th man," as Azinger has called it, then cheer like crazy for the good shots from Americans and remain dead quiet for those from the Europeans. Silence is golden in this case.

As for putting Kenny Perry and J.B. Holmes in the first pairing, honestly, with thousands of fans packed into watching the four matches on the course, "most of the crowd" won't be following any one group in particular. And sure, the two Kentucky guys might get a few extra hoots and hollers from the gallery, but it won't be much more than the rest of the Americans receive.

3:35 p.m.: My fellow Americans, no matter what happens on the course here at Valhalla this week, you can take heart in the fact that the Cup is coming back to the United States for the next two years!

No, not the Ryder Cup. I'm talking about the Rolex Media Cup, which was contended Tuesday at Big Spring Country Club as the U.S. writers trounced the European hacks using a Net Stableford format.

Yes, yours truly was on the winning side. (Full disclosure: With 20 Americans and only 11 Europeans in the tournament, only the top 11 U.S. scores were used. And no, I wasn't in that top 11. However, had the bottom 11 point totals been employed instead, the red, white and blue still would have pulled out the victory. So there.)

I bring this up now because U.S. captain Hank Gola (of the New York Daily News) is giving every team member a few minutes of inspiration with the Cup. (Yes, there really is a trophy. And you really can drink out of it.) It is now sitting next to me, gleaming magnificently under the flourescent glow of the media center.

Eat your hearts out, European dudes. You might still have the Ryder Cup, but we've got the one that really matters.

3:25 p.m.: It can be argued that no player has more pressure on him this week than Kenny Perry, a Kentucky native who didn't try to qualify for the U.S. Open in hopes of staying fresh to make this team and didn't play in the British Open in hopes of earning more points in an alternate-field event.

As for Europe, perhaps the player feeling the most pressure is Ian Poulter, who many claim was named a captain's pick over Darren Clarke (although I still believe the final spot might have come down to Paul Casey and Clarke).

While the British tabloids are trying to contend there's a rift among the team members, Poulter denied any bouts of team dissention earlier today:

"To be honest, the guys have been great. Everybody on the team is united as normal. I think the team morale is great. I think everybody is really excited to be here this week, and we want to go out there and do the right job. People are working hard to make sure we do that."

There's no rift outside the team room, either. Poulter intimated that he has spoken with Clarke and they still are on good terms:

"He was very supportive actually. He's obviously personally very disappointed with not making the side. But Darren said, 'You know, I'm very pleased that you've made the side and you're a very worthy player of making that side.' That's the type of guy Darren is. He's taken it obviously personally; he's very disappointed, but on the other hand, he's pleased for me to make the side. … That's the type of person Darren is. He's very respectful and he's a great guy. That's nice. It's nice to have a chat with somebody like that after obviously the situation he was in."

Poulter is often an all-or-nothing type of guy. He could go 4-0 this week, but if his game isn't where it needs to be, he could just as easily go 0-4.

3:15 p.m.: How far has Boo Weekley come in recent months? Pretty far, considering seven months ago, he didn't know he could concede a putt.

As a few e-mailers have mentioned in recent weeks, there's only one way the U.S. team can beat Sergio Garcia: Hope he plays against Boo Weekley and signs an incorrect scorecard. Shades of Southern Hills, anyone?

(And yes, Bob Harig now owes me dinner for linking to two of his pieces in the same blog entry.)

As for Boo, well, I'd be remiss if I didn't include the best quotes from his pre-tourney news conference Tuesday:

On his wardrobe for this week: "I can tell you right now these pants I've got on are probably the most expensive thing I've ever owned, this pair of pants. These things here, they felt like a pair of silk underwear when you're getting ready to go hunting. They're unreal."

On wearing a tuxedo for Thursday night's gala: "I'm going to feel like I'm all up in a straightjacket I reckon. I don't wear them much. Not at all, actually, to tell you the truth."

On the reaction he's received from the galleries: "I felt a lot of love. My finger feels it, too. I've got a blister on it from where I signed so many autographs today."

On the U.S. team's hopes: "We're underdogs. You don't know what you've got until you get out there and play with it. It's like getting a new pack of hounds when we were growing up and going deer hunting. You don't know what kind of dogs you've got until you run them, so let's run them and we'll see."

On his first tee shot at the Ryder Cup: "You never know what can happen. I might shank it, top it. You don't ever know what's going to happen. It's golf. That's what makes this game the greatest game there is to play."

Amen, Boo.

2:33 p.m.: At the Masters, any mistake I made was met with a response of "What a stupid I am," in honor of Roberto de Vicenzo.

At the U.S. Open, it was, "I'm such an idiot," in honor of Phil Mickelson.

At the British Open, mistakes were simply "Van de Veldian," in honor of, well, you know.

Here at the Ryder Cup, I'll simply say I'm 1-down after conceding on this point, corrected by first e-mailer of the week, Kevin in Louisville:

As of 2 p.m. on Wednesday, there are still 160,000+ people without electricity [in Louisville]. This is very unfortunate for the city's people and for building excitement of the tournament. Please do not discount Louisville in saying there is a lack of electricity, and please do not say power has been restored (in a sense that everything is back in order and the theoretical "electricity" should now start), because it HAS NOT. It could be 10-14 days before everyone gets their power back. Contrary to what you might think out there at Valhalla, people still don't have fresh food, the elderly are still living without the cooling air they need, and people are STILL EXCITED ABOUT THE RYDER CUP! We are sincerely honored to have it here, it's just that electricity is at the basis of almost everything Americans do, and because of how important electricity is, we are forced to care more about hungry kids and sick elderly than the Ryder Cup. Mind you also that the lack of electricity may also be due to the fact that tickets were $500+ per day (and that was a steal), and most Louisvillians cannot afford that. Hence, we do not have a professional sports team -- in one of the most sports-driven states in the country. I'm not complaining; I just hate it when people from Kentucky always get a bad rap.

My apologies. Didn't realize the situation was so dire here in the city. If the tournament provides a little entertainment and relief to those who have had an otherwise difficult time lately because of the weather, then hopefully this can turn into a positive.

2:23 p.m.: The Ryder Cup is better than the Presidents Cup.

Unless you're ticked off about the Americans' recent performance level in the former or simply enjoy the more casual nature of the latter, it's tough to argue against that statement. There's more history and more passion to the Ryder Cup and, frankly, it means more to everyone involved.

That said, not every aspect of the Ryder Cup supercedes that of its younger cousin.

My favorite part of the Presidents Cup is always on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, when the two captains sit down across from each other at a table and basically have what amounts to a fantasy draft-style selection process for the next day's matches. What it means is that if -- as happened last year -- Mike Weir really wants to face Tiger Woods in a singles match, his captain can ensure that it will happen.

At the Ryder Cup, however, each captain submits his list of players, in order, prior to the matches, independently of the other guy. Wouldn't it be more fun to watch Azinger and Faldo trying to outwit each other, while pitting their best players in a few must-see TV matchups?

Hey, PGA of America and European Tour: Let's make this happen.

2:10 p.m.: It wouldn't be a Ryder Cup if the European writers weren't trying to drum up a little controversy prior to the event.

Today's big news? It seems that Europe captain Nick Faldo was holding a piece of paper on which he had players' initials listed, perhaps allowing a peak into which players will be paired together come Friday. The highlights from his interview session, which ended just a little while ago:

Q: A TV camera and photographer picked out you holding a piece of paper with some pairings on it. Are you concerned about that?

NICK FALDO: Yeah, fortunately my son is watching my back, and he says, "Dad, they can see you." So it just had the lunch list. It had sandwich requests for the guys, just making sure who wants the tuna, what wants the beef, who wants the ham. So that's all it was -- sandwich list (grinning).

Q: We've seen them.

NICK FALDO: You've seen them? You've seen the pairings? I can't hear you.

Q: When you said when you said it was your sandwich list, we've seen the photographs, we've seen the initials.

NICK FALDO: Well, you don't know what order they are in. I've got 12 names.

Q: Well, 11 actually.

NICK FALDO: 11 on here?

Q: On the ones we've seen.

NICK FALDO: Put my name down then.

Q: Well, I'm just pointing out that it is in circulation. These photographs, it's been on SKY Television apparently, photographs of something alleged to be your notes.

NICK FALDO: My handwriting. Well, we don't know who with. It's initials. Yeah, I put my team down in initials. And then which way I go, is my choice, yeah.

Q: Some of them do look like pairings.

NICK FALDO: Really? That's worrying, isn't it? I haven't put numbers next to them yet, have I? We don't know what order they will go out so some are safe. And that was on the seventh tee. And if the photographer was on the 13th or 14th, it all changed, so it's all different now.

Q: Just to return to your lunch list one more time, having looked at the pictures, it looks like you've got [Sergio] Garcia and [Lee] Westwood, and [Padraig] Harrington and [Robert] Karlsson as two pairings. Can we make the assumption that those are your first two pairings on Friday morning?

NICK FALDO: Those are tomorrow's pairings, Thursday's pairings, practice round.

Q: They will be practicing together, so that's not Friday morning's pairings?

NICK FALDO: No, Thursday. Tomorrow's Thursday. I'm doing tomorrow's pairings.

Q: And Henrik Stenson is not on the list at all; is he not practicing tomorrow?

NICK FALDO: He's on the other side of the piece of paper. The Swedes do it the other way around. No, it's tomorrow's pairings, OK, I've been caught. I learned a lesson. You know the pairings and we are going to play foursomes on the front nine. Any more questions?

Yes, I have one: Who cares?

Honestly, folks, I enjoy discussing potential pairings matchups as much as the next golf writer, but at some point you've got to think to yourself, "You know what? I can handle not knowing the pairings until 5 p.m. on Thursday. I'm OK with that. I don't need to know right now."

My best guess is that those asking these questions are the same people who as kids used to peak at their Christmas presents on Dec. 23, too.

1:48 p.m.: And now for the funny stuff …

It's usually pingpong that is the game of choice for the U.S. team at these events, but Azinger is a connoisseur of a different "sport." The dude loves … foosball. Yes, the game with the tiny little guys trying to kick a ball into the opposing player's goal. But is he any good?

"I'm heads and tails the most dominant foosball figure in [the U.S. team] room. Every night, I own everybody to the point that they won't gamble with me, so I've generated zero revenue for my children's college fund. Am I one of the best foosball players in our area [in Florida]? No, I'm not. My old caddie, Ted Scott, who caddies for Bubba Watson, was a World Foosball Champion as an amateur. I asked him to teach me how to play foosball. I played it in high school and college and got away from it like everybody else in this room."

Now Azinger is really into it. And when I mean really, well, I mean REALLY:

"You can go on foosball.com and find foosball in every city in the country. I do that. As a matter of fact, when I got here on Saturday, I had a friend text message me that he was coming to the tournament and that there was a foosball party, an all-day foosball party on Saturday, and they were barbecuing and kegs of beer and the whole deal. I said, 'Cool, text me the guy's number. I will call him when I get in town.'
"I called him a little later than I wanted, and I called him, he said: 'We've got a tournament, it's a pick your partner, it's a blind draw, whatever it was. We're running another one soon.' Dinner ran late. I called him at 9:30, he gave me directions over the phone, and we probably got -- it was 13 miles out of town, and I rolled into this, it was like a crack house for foosball players. I swear to god, there wasn't a stick of furniture in his house. There was people willy-nilly all over the place.
"I don't think anyone is in that house during the week; that they just go out and hang out on the weekends and have a big time. It was a little bit like 'Silence of the Lambs' walking in the basement going down there to play foosball. There was 25 people in there, nobody smoked downstairs, it was really hot, had this eerie lighting, concrete block walls, and here I roll in, here comes the captain, and I promise you, not five people knew who I was. They were all totally sweating and totally into their foosball deal.
"I played foosball for an hour and a half on Saturday and I got home after that, something like that. I am a total foosball junkie. I'd like to see foosball get back on ESPN or X Games or something like that, because it is a tremendous game that requires a tremendous amount of skill.
"It's a hand-eye game, and I would like to see somebody pick it up. We'll see. Maybe this will help. I can't believe I spent 10 minutes on foosball. I'm really sorry. I want to apologize to all of you about that. My foosball game, honestly, is very -- when I go down there and play with guys like that, I actually held my own, but they figure me out and I end up getting shut down by most people."

So, uh, yeah -- he's kind of into foosball.

I'm still researching whether that was the first time a Ryder Cup captain ever used the term "crack house" in a pre-tournament interview session. Does anyone have the transcript from Ted Ray's media interview in 1927?

1:25 p.m.: OK, first the insightful stuff …

Many of the questions Paul Azinger received today revolved around his pairings, especially for the opening foursomes (alternate shot) matches. Doesn't take a genius to see which way the captain is thinking right now. Both yesterday and today, the U.S. players have played practice rounds in three foursomes: Jim Furyk, Boo Weekley, Kenny Perry and J.B. Holmes; Stewart Cink, Steve Stricker, Ben Curtis and Chad Campbell; and Phil Mickelson, Anthony Kim, Hunter Mahan and Justin Leonard. Said Azinger:

"Yeah, there's a pattern developing. Yeah, probably. I mean, common sense would tell you that. To tell you the truth, I honestly wrote down pairings before I even picked my four players. I already had an idea how I wanted to fill out my team. I've got the first day's pairings done, but they're subject to change."

If I had to guess, I would think Furyk/Weekley, Perry/Holmes, Mickelson/Kim and Mahan/Leonard are locked in to be paired together for at least some point during the first day. It's more difficult to discern the pairings from the second of the three foursomes; he may be leaning toward Cink/Stricker and Curtis/Campbell, but personally I think Cink/Campbell and Curtis/Stricker make more sense, at least for the foursomes format, in which he'll want to pair like-minded players as far as driving distance, accuracy, etc.

A few other notes gleaned from Azinger as he stepped away from the dais:

If -- and this is a big if -- the two Kentucky guys, Perry and Holmes, play together, they'll go out in the first pairing on Friday morning. I still think it's a smoke screen. I don't have any inside knowledge, but something tells me we'll see the heavy hitters right off the bat, with Mickelson and Kim taking on the ruthless European duo of Sergio Garcia and Lee Westwood. Call it a hunch.

Azinger also noted that every single member of the 12-man roster will play on Friday, when there are a total of eight matches. That means, of course, that eight players will play only once and four will play twice. You'd have to think Azinger would want his strongest players (Mickelson, Kim, Furyk and either Cink or Perry) representing those four spots, but that remains to be seen.

Right off the bat, Azinger noted that he likes how everyone is playing, but I asked him whether anyone in particular has shined so far. His response:

"J.B. Holmes has been unbelievable. He's played terrific. Kenny Perry has been playing great. Mickelson. They're all hitting it great. I think my dilemma is to figure out who I'm going to leave out the first morning. That's really the problem I'm having at this point. But again, I can't stress enough that it doesn't matter to me really all that much what's going on Monday, Tuesday. I'd rather have the players playing well than playing poorly."

OK, then. So who's playing poorly right now?

"I don't think there's one guy that's playing poorly right now. I mean, you know, that's a pretty nice problem to have. Everyone is playing pretty well. If somebody was playing poorly, you have a format in place where you can hide anybody you want. I mean, four guys don't play the first day; they sit. That's just the way it is. If you had three guys playing poorly, you could wait until Sunday to play them. That's just not the case."

Hmmm … peaking too early? Or just a case of exaggerated hyperbole from the skipper?

1:12 p.m.: When I first arrived in Louisville for the Ryder Cup on Monday, there was a noticeable lack of electricity in this city. Perhaps that's because there was a noticeable lack of electricity in this city.

It may have been difficult for residents to get too excited about the upcoming event when just days earlier the tail end of Hurricane Ike blew through town and turned off the lights on its way out, but the power is back on and there's a current running through the calm Kentucky air right now.

Earlier today, I appeared on Bob Valvano's local ESPN Radio program here in Louisville and he called this the biggest international sporting event ever to come to this city. I can tell you that the energy has been turned up a few thousand watts in the past 48 hours and should only continue to rise until Friday morning, when the first foursomes match begins at 8 a.m. local time.

Anyway, if you're looking for my Ryder Cup Live Blog, that will have to wait until Friday. Instead, you'll have to make do with this pre-tournament Ryder Cup Semi-Live Blog, in which I'll update entries every, oh, 10-15 minutes rather than the usual 5 or so once it begins.

If you're new to the blog, welcome and here's the deal: Keep clicking the refresh button and I'll keep writing live here from Valhalla. You can hit me up with questions, suggestions, comments or -- gulp -- threats at rydercupblog@gmail.com. Just got out of U.S. captain Paul Azinger's interview session with the media, which was at once both hilarious and insightful. I'll fill you in on all of it in just a few minutes …

Jason Sobel is a golf writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at Jason.Sobel@espn3.com.