Ryder Cup: Ireland's Open Arms Welcome the World

Just how welcoming is the European team to that of the United States then, Woosie?

The president of Ireland, Mary McAleese, had offered the traditional hundred thousand welcomes to the spectators in the stands and sprawled across the K Club practice ground. Minutes earlier, the Irish news reader Sharon Ni Bheolain, a facile and fetching mistress of ceremonies in a long beige dress, had done likewise.

By the time the opening ceremony got as far as the European captain, however, the bar had been lowered. First a brave stab at the local dialect, and then the revelation that as far as he was concerned it was a thousand welcomes and not one more, an incredible one hundredfold reduction. How hospitable is that? Woosnam, who is unlikely to challenge Aneurin Bevan as one of Wales's great orators, none the less had managed to get through his speech of introduction (a part of the job which he was dreading) with no damage done and without mentioning how honoured he was quite as often as his counterpart, Tom Lehman.

The American captain had chosen to dress his team in sober fashion so that their charcoal-grey suits with white pocket hankies lent them the appearance of a Midwest convention of insurance salesmen. It was a stark contrast to the apple-green blazers and dark trousers of the Europeans which might be described as Hi-Di-Hi chic. With their partners booted and suited as well, and looking less than usual like escapees from a Barbie factory, Lehman's side swiftly went one up in the fashion stakes.

The opening ceremony had promised "relatively speaking" to "deliver the visual impact which one would typically associate with the opening of the Olympic Games". Specifically this would involve a pageant to tell the story of Ireland's relationship with golf, but still rooted in Irish music, story, legend and myth. Anyone who witnessed the legendary opening of the 1999 Cricket World Cup at Lord's, for which the phrase "damp squib" does not even come close to representing the level of incompetence, has a natural suspicion of such ceremonies. But the organisers here did rather a good job, resisting the temptation to indulge in diddly dee music, Riverdancing and maudlin songs, and instead commissioning some stunningly haunting Celtic music from the composer and musician Donal Lunny to go with fine choreography.

The pageantry held the attention well. There had been a worrying sight earlier in the day when, with the wind still gusting merrily, large inflatable planets were being filled with helium and strained at their moorings, with the potential, should they break loose, to wipe out both teams in one go. These it transpired represented the ancient Irish gods' equivalent of Titleist, which subsequently, in the first cameo, they were shown hooking and slicing around the arena.

A later spectacle, performed by the CoisCeim Dance Theatre, was inspired by images from the Book of Kells, the ninthcentury beautifully ornate Christian manuscript that can be found in Dublin's Trinity College. Between came an unusual offering from an eccentric balding Spaniard in white pyjamas, Carlos Núñez, whose composition, Rupert's Mambo, was played with foot-stamping verve on traditional Irish Uilleann pipes. "That," said Ms Bheolain after Núñez had finished and blown extravagant kisses to the crowd, "is the Seve Ballesteros of Celtic music."

Seve, naturally, is the Carlos of the golf course. Although Van Morrison had performed at the gala ball the previous evening, rumours of an appearance by U2 yesterday proved unfounded, presumably because Bono is too busy saving the planet.