Underdogs Bite Back and the Hometown Cheers Grow Louder

The cigar smoke was already drifting around the fringes of the first green when the opening quartet strode into view. As the spectators watched Robert Karlsson steadying himself in the middle of the fairway to make the most of Padraig Harrington's immaculate drive, a man in a stars-and-stripes shirt muttered: "All right, Karlsson, don't bury it under the lip of that trap too deep." But when the Swede's approach shot flew high towards the heart of the green and came to rest a few feet from the pin, the man shook his head ruefully and joined the general applause.

Harrington knocked home the birdie putt to give Europe an immediate lead. "That's it," the stars-and-stripes man said. "Four years in a row they've done that." Within half an hour, the defending Ryder Cup champions were up in three matches and all-square in the fourth. An elderly man wearing a solid-gold Rolex broke off from giving his much younger wife a neck massage to remark: "This is not good."

It didn't last. A momentum switch gave the US a significant lunchtime lead and the effect lasted into the afternoon four ball matches, the US players scrapping and scuffling with an intensity not seen since their last victory at Brookline in 1999. The switch, however, had nothing to do with the vociferousness of the home support, whom Paul Azinger, the US captain, had invited to become the team's 13th man.

As he prepared to send out his afternoon pairings, Azinger commented on the decorum of the Kentucky fans. At a rowdy pep rally in downtown Louisville the previous night he had instructed the home supporters to cheer when the European players missed putts, something no captain has said before. He got a bit of a response, but nothing that could be described as unpleasantly aggressive. Many of the Kentuckians reclining on the vast banks and mounds were occupying themselves by musing on the troubled state of the economy or discussing a weekend visit to a daughter at Indiana University, pausing briefly to encourage the golfers as they passed by.

Azinger had disappointed those hoping for a bit of cheap drama by refraining from sending out the home-state pair of the veteran Kenny Perry and the big-hitting JB Holmes to open the morning session. One of Holmes' bombs might have set the bluegrass valleys aflame. Instead he was left on the sidelines while Perry teamed up with Jim Furyk in the morning. The entire population of Franklin, Kentucky appeared to be streaming down the sides of the fairway as their favourite son set off. Alas, Perry's first shot found a greenside bunker at the 1st and his play never really recovered. It was largely through Furyk's efforts that they secured a scrambled half against Lee Westwood and Sergio Garcia.

In the galleries, the mood was enthusiastic but surprisingly mellow. As the natives and the flag-bedecked European supporters walked side by side, some unlikely conversations were struck up. "Fill me in on the Welsh soccer team," a middle-aged man with a southern accent said to three younger men wearing red- dragon shirts alongside the 4th fairway. "Are they gonna qualify for the World Cup? I like that kid who just went to Arsenal. What's his name? Ramsey? He and Theo Walcott - they're just at the beginning."

A small aircraft towing a Texas Roadhouse banner puttered overhead as the spectators moved slowly through the course's many bottlenecks, sunlight filtering through the dust kicked up by their shuffling feet. By noon the only alcoholic drink spotted had been a Bloody Mary in the hand of a man in a purple shirt. Unlike Europe's golfers, vendors with tubs of iced beer at $6 a can were not being overwhelmed.

Holmes was let off the leash in the afternoon session, sent out in the last pairing against Lee Westwood and Soren Hansen alongside Thomas Brent 'Boo' Weekley, another southern good ol' boy, who remarked earlier in the week that his team trousers were the most expensive garment he has ever pulled on, so soft that they reminded him of the silk underwear he wears on winter hunting expeditions.

A crunching 370-yard drive, a surprisingly delicate low 80-yard approach and a solid 8ft putt gave the hunter a birdie at the 1st, provoking the expected response, but the US pair went stone cold and were two down within a further four holes. Weekley's attempts to arouse the crowd drew a series of stern stares from Westwood, but the unimpressed Floridan produced a birdie at the 8th to revive their efforts.

When Holmes' short, fast swing sent another monster drive into a swale to the right of the 9th fairway, he found Azinger materializing to have a lengthy word in his ear. The response was immediate. The man from Campbellsville hit his difficult second shot to 3ft but was able to stand back and watch Weekley tap in a birdie to square the match. The gallery erupted, a smiling Azinger gave a little air-punch, and the US again seemed to be controlling the overall pattern of the session. Here, the crowd sensed, was a turning point.

There was indeed more to come. Weekley's giant birdie putt at the 12th took them into the lead, symbolizing the combination of risk and resolve that made it a great day for the US. Justin Leonard provided a flashback to Brookline when he chipped in at the 15th to seal a second point of the day for his partnership with Hunter Mahan. Now conversations about Wall Street and daughters were set aside amid the cheers.

The Europeans, by contrast, had been as flaky as their fussy outfits, one group after another allowing a good start to crumble under their opponents' sustained pressure. As the afternoon shadows lengthened and the cigar smoke thickened, Faldo's wonderland had turned into a valley of sorrows.