Solheim CupIf the fist-pumping on the first tee was not a big enough clue, then the Stars and Stripes face-tattoos were a blatant sign: the United States' Solheim Cup team, humiliated by their European counterparts two years ago, are determined to deliver the humiliation this time round. But as this year's tournament began at Crooked Stick yesterday morning the early signs were that they might be in for a disappointment.
After looking likely to forge a comfortable margin for much of the morning foursomes, the home side succumbed to a combination of matchplay nerves and European grit to end the first series of the three-day event trailing by three points to one.
From Europe's perspective, pride of place must go to Annika Sorenstam and Suzann Pettersen, who were four down with six holes to play against Laura Diaz and Michele Redman but won the next five holes and closed out the match on the final hole.
The victory might have registered only one point in the scoring column, but psychologically it was a sickening turn of events for the Americans. In matches such as these, nothing is more comforting to the visiting team than the cheers of their own small band of supporters echoing across an otherwise silent course.
Europe's other victory came from Laura Davies and Maria Hjorth, who took an early lead against Natalie Gulbis and Cristie Kerr, expected to be the US's strongest pairing, and sealed it on the penultimate hole, winning 2 and 1.
Two halved ties, including another outlandish comeback, this time from Sophie Gustafson and Trish Johnson, who had been three down to the American pairing of Pat Hurst and Christina Kim on the back nine, added up to a 3-1 lead for Europe.
US captain Nancy Lopez can have found little of comfort. However, the announcement of the afternoon fourball pairings and the non-appearance of Ludivine Kreutz and Gwladys Nocera was perhaps a clue that Europe's captain, Catrin Nilsmark, agrees with those who argued that the two French players might prove a telling weakness by tomorrow afternoon.
Not that the minutiae of Europe's selection process mattered to the hollering crowds, who began to gather around the first tee an hour before play yesterday and started the "U-S-A, U-S-A" chants shortly thereafter.
By the time the Americans' assistant captain, Donna Caponi, danced on to the first tee throwing uppercuts at the thin air - think Angela Rippon with misguided dreams of making it in the world of Roy Jones Jnr - the atmosphere might generously have been described as light-headedly patriotic, or less generously as ridiculously jingoistic.
Matters didn't improve with the arrival of the players on the tee, not least because the first American pairing sent out by Lopez was the veteran Beth Daniels and the hugely talented, and temporarily tattooed, Paula Creamer, who had confidently predicted long before a ball was struck that Europe were going to be hammered.
It is fine to talk the talk so long as you can walk the walk, and for the first holes Creamer looked like she might be lunching on her own intemperate words. After thinning her approach shot to the first green - which cost her team the hole - she missed putts that she might have hoped to hole on the next couple of greens.
But eventually the 19-year-old began to show the ball-striking and mental strength that have won her more than $1 million on the LPGA tour this year.
Luckily for Europe, the same could not be said of her team-mates.
SOLHEIM CUP (at Crooked Stick, Carmel, Indiana) - Day One - Foursomes (US names first): B Daniel, P Creamer halved with C Koch, C Matthew, C Kerr, N Gulbis lost to L Davies, M Hjorth 2 and 1, C Kim, P Hurst halved with S Gustafson T Johnson, M Redman, L Diaz lost to A Sorenstam, S Pettersen 1 hole.
