To be a sceptic out on the fairways of the Country Club, Brookline is to be alone, very alone, a figure of low moral character wandering through a revival meeting of solid fundamentalists, a peacenik in a war zone, a taxpayer in the golden circle.
Trying to get with the programme, we tucked in behind the match of the day. Tiger and Tom versus Sergio and Jesper. The names alone gave the game away. Sergio and Jesper are a smorgasbord of Europeaness. Tiger and Tom: Mom's apple pie.
It's about two guys though. Jesper and Tom are just along for the ride. Europe V America is backstory, subplot. Tiger and Sergio (weren't they 70s crooners?) are the main event. Last month in Medina, Chicago when Woods won the USPGA title it was Sergio who nicked his thunder. The American public, a mite jaded by Woods's insipid excellence, embraced Garcia on the final round.
No harm. Golf needs its duels, needs it's good guys and its bad guys. Was there ever a better period for the game than when Fat Jack began stalking Arnie and his army? So this morning as luck would have it Garcia and Woods have come out in the same foursome.
El Nino's presence has taken the partisan edge off the play. Many Americans have just come to see Sergio.
Nobody is sure how to behave. From the other fairways comes unseemly raucous partisan hollering and hooting. Really it's too early in the morning to be rooting against anyone. The quirky format, the dewy dawn atmosphere and the presence of Garcia and Woods on the same teebox gives Match number two the feel of an exhibition.
Worryingly it seems that there is no agreed European hat-wearing style. Parnevik wears his brim shooting skywards like Norman Wisdom. Garcia has his curved like the St Louis Arch. The Americans with the millinery issue in order make a good start.
The best golf moment comes right there, on the first hole when Lehman upstages everyone by chipping in from the edge of the green. Way to go!
But people have come to compare and contrast Woods and Garcia.
By the third, when they both leave their long approach shots 12 feet from the pin, there is a general murmur of satisfaction. This is the business.
They drive.
"Jeez. Sergio can really jack it."
"He slaps that baby."
Every point of comparison between Woods and Garcia is mined and explored in the gallery. Two, skinny, tawny, young guys followed reverendly by about 15,000 people.
Strip away the dense corporate layers, the intercontinental showdown stuff and, in fact, the rivalry between Woods and Garcia is good entertainment in its own right. Garcia has such irrepressible kiddishness that Woods, barely out of the acne zone himself, comes across as a miffed elder statesman.
Leading from the first by dint of Lehman's chip, the Americans go two up on the fifth but lose the sixth and seventh in a flurry of shotmaking which gets the crowd fully awake and produces the full range of pumped gestures from Garcia. By the 12th Europe are leading and there is some grumbling in the gallery to the effect that these guys (Woods and Lehman) just don't care.
The silence and the scarcely spoken disapproval hang over Woods like a gypsy curse. By the time he lays up a nice second shot to within eight feet on the 15th he is working on his ennui. He gives a little fist pump to the crowd which gratefully takes its cue and roars lustily. Tiger cares.
Garcia's exuberance is still the more contagious mood, however.
On the 10th he chased a putt to the lip of the hole in schoolboyish excitement. The crowd roared with him. Whoa. Awwwww!
This isn't one continent kicking the other continent's butt. This is showtime.
When Parnevik eventually sinks the putt on the 17th which ends the thing, Garcia lights up as if somebody has shot 5,000 volts through him. The American applause is warm and gracious.
Back in the press room a man on a stepladder staples big ominous red zeroes after the names of Woods and Lehman. Even an agnostic can savour the drama of the ceremony.
