Opening-day boo-boo helps break tension

Caddie's view: Starting a tournament on Friday is a day late for the habitual golf pro programming. Thursday is almost subconsciously start day for a professional.

Given that the Ryder Cup players have been in Ireland since Monday under the added strain of team compromise, already it has been a long week and the real work only began yesterday.

There were some loud cheers pounding around the Palmer course during the practice sessions, when the players hit shots with impunity. Now that it was show-time and they were going out live, the consequences would be serious.

Entering the course and hearing and seeing the hubbub around the vicinity of the first tee, you were given a refreshing reminder of just how popular the game has become - and how it has been transformed from the staid old fuddy-duddy domain it used to be.

Ivor Robson, the official starter, introduced the players a couple of minutes before 8am on the first tee. Usually impeccable, he got his rounds mixed up and announced the foursomes matches instead of the fourball. But it kind of broke the tension - and better him make a boo-boo on the first tee than one of the players.

The last time I witnessed a hole this tightly and deeply surrounded was at the Phoenix event in Arizona, where the par-three 16th becomes an amphitheatre for tournament week. This time the first hole at The K Club, which is twice as long, became the most populated one I have ever seen in golf.

No matter how early the fans had to rouse themselves from their slumbers, there was no indication that any of what looked like a crowd of 20,000 around the first fairway regretted the early start.

A tall man standing beside me about 20 rows back from the ropes very helpfully gave me a running commentary on the state of the opening tee shots. Seemingly before Tiger's ball landed in the water my neighbour could tell me where it was. I was miffed. It was only as he charged toward the fairway that I noticed his earplug and realised he was listening to the radio commentary.

There is a narrow bottleneck on the first up near the green. It was like Straffan's version of the Mad Cow roundabout, the whacky races for pedestrians. I shuffled my way along the muddy walkways and patiently waited for the traffic to disperse up the course.

I jumped over to the 13th with little hope of seeing much in the line of golf. I found a grassy knoll about 80 yards from the 13th green. I took my position with the rest of the snipers and waited for some action. I was lucky.

JJ Henry had hit his tee shot in the left rough and had to lay up. His ball came to rest adjacent to where I had taken my position. There was me thinking I was going to see an entire golf shot. Wrong. I did see - through a gap in the mob that was otherwise impeding my view - a beautifully shaped rectangular divot fly though the air and bounce on the lush fairway. Would that be the limit of my golf spectating?

I came down from the knoll and tried a new approach. Get ahead, I thought. I have got to get ahead. I made my way to the sixth green in anticipation of the arrival of the first group. Who was I kidding? There was room only for tall people three holes ahead of the lead group. If you are of average height may I suggest over the next few days that you plant yourself at your desired viewing point a good half day before the players' anticipated arrival.

I chuckled to myself, because I had headed past the 10th tee earlier and found people positioning themselves hours in advance of the arrival of the Monty/Harrington combination. I settled, from 15 rows back, for a tippytoed view of Monty (my calves were getting a bit achy already). As it happened, it was through a stray wisp of Seve's hair. The maestro had made an appearance on the 10th tee and positioned his rather broad, Iberian frame right between me and the intense-looking Scotsman.

The European vice-captain, Des Smyth, had to stand up in his electric cart to see Colin's drive. As he rose from his seat, he accidentally hit the horn with his leg. Two seconds later you heard the crack of Monty's drive. It was obviously a very good one. Not that I saw it, of course, but I could tell from the fact that the normally irritable Monty did not scowl in the direction of the vice-captain.

I finally gave up all hope of seeing anything, not even through an ex-captain's thinning locks. I saw few famous faces yesterday at The K Club - but I am getting very familiar with the backs of spectators' heads.