CHASKA, Minn. – From the moment you set foot on the grounds of Hazeltine National Golf Club, you could tell something was different. Check that, from the moment you were stuck in stop-and-go traffic, miles from the course, at 6 a.m., you knew something was different.
Ryder Cup hyperbole can get out of hand sometimes, it's certainly not the biggest sporting event on the planet, but compared to anything else in golf … well, you can't compare it actually. All the evidence needed could be found on the first tee as the first group approached the tee box. Chants from European fans were followed by chants from U.S. fans – and back and forth they went, again and again, until the first golfer placed his tee in the ground.
Roars are sometimes heard from grandstands after an amazing approach or a long putt, but rarely do you hear roars from a tee box, but this is the Ryder Cup and these fans were ready.
As fevered as the fans were for the start of the Ryder Cup, this is Minnesota and as a life-long Minnesotan, I know how we get when things start to go south, so the quick start that team USA delivered was all that more important to keep the crowd near its hysterical level.
Home-field advantage is a misnomer in certain sports, baseball and hockey come to mind, but in others, it can mean the difference between a win and a loss, see football and basketball. Golf, however, has no home-field advantage, expect on the rare occasion that a golfer is playing on his home course. Even in that situation, though, the crowd only cheers for that individual and not against his opponents. That isn't the case with the Ryder Cup. And to say the fans didn't have an impact on Day 1, would be flat-out wrong.
With the fans doing their part early and the players doing their part as well, Team USA got off to a great start in the morning matches, taking matches one and four with ease.
Match three was tight for a while, but Dustin Johnson and Jimmy Walker pulled away in the end. Match two was the only one that held any suspense, and that ended when Andy Sullivan put his tee shot in the water on the 17th hole. A 4-0 start to the day, one that no one could have predicted.
The afternoon matches were a different story, though, and Team Europe seized a large amount of momentum back, which will make for an interesting Saturday. Team Europe seems to have figured out its core, while Team USA is left to wonder what to make of the DJ/Matt Kuchar combo.
On the bright side, Davis Love has three unbeaten teams heading into Saturday's matches and could easily put those three out there along with Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed and no one could complain. The way the afternoon matches shook out may not be ideal for the American side, but Europe's afternoon performance made this interesting again … just like we knew it would.
