TV View: "This is your 7am alarm call," said David Livingstone who, along with Nick Faldo, Butch Harmon and Ronan Rafferty, must surely have slept in Sky Sports' K Club studio overnight to have been on duty in time.

The last time we were up this early for telly sport was for the 2000 Olympic Games, it wasn't until yesterday we discovered Kildare was in the same time zone as Sydney.

"Never have so many people been up so early in the same place," said Ewen Murray, who doesn't take the M50 to work every morning, as he said hello from the commentary box.

The scenes that greeted us, though, were troubling, men with hard hats sawing lumps out of uprooted trees, and divil a sign of large chunks of The K Club scoreboard, which might have accounted for sightings of UFOs over Cahirciveen during the night.

"The forecast for the afternoon is for showers and possibly thunderstorms," Livingstone told us, lest we thought things could only get better.

On his arrival, Ian Woosnam looked bleary-eyed but Tom Lehman was sprightly. "What time did you get up?" asked Dominic Holyer. "Oh, about 5.30," said Tom, and you got the feeling that, for Tom, this was a lie-in.

As 8am approached Sky continued to whip us in to a frenzy, first playing The Ryder Cup Irish (alive, alive o) by a folk band they stumbled upon in Temple Bar (to be honest, we ourselves have never stumbled upon a folk band in Temple Bar, or anywhere else, that sings about golf, but maybe that's just the power of the Ryder Cup).

Then they got Christy O'Connor Jr, Eamonn Darcy, Paul McGinley and assorted Irish Ryder Cup legends to define the word "craic" for the non-Irish audience.

"It's the street name given to cocaine that has been processed from cocaine hydrochloride to a ready-to-use free base for smoking," they all, alas, resisted saying.

Almost time, over to Ewen and Bruce Critchley.

The starter introduced Harrington, Montgomerie, Woods and Furyk and, like we've a habit of doing ourselves, muddles his foursomes with his fourballs.

"Gladiators in to the arena," said Rafferty, while Bruce told us he felt a "tingle of anticipation", but Ewen took it to a whole new level: "For the 24 players it's a time not to ask what your country can do for you, it's a time to think of what you can do for your country."

Up stepped Tiger. Cool as a breeze, class personified, and put his ball in the lake. "Whoooooooo," said the crowd, "an astonishing mistake from the world's number one," gasped Ewen, "but it only proves he, like the rest of us, is only human."

No worries. For Tiger it was a time not to ask what he could do for his country, it was a time to ask Furyk what he could do for him. He obliged. Won the match, very almost single-handedly.

Needless to say, though, all eyes were on our Darren. But to be honest they always have been, you have to love a man who has a giggle at golf and who regards a large cigar as essential a piece of equipment in his bag as a putter or a sandwedge.

A rather marvellous reception he got too, so marvellous we feared his legs would turn to jelly, resulting in him Tigering his first shot. Na, dissected the fairway. And then birdied. Buy that man another cigar.

Back to Tiger. "Back in the Ryder Cup fog," said Faldo, who, by then, had moved from the studio to the commentary box, where he proved to be tremendously loquacious. Ewen likes the odd soothing silence, but Nick, we gathered, looks upon silence much as he might a three-putt: doesn't like it much.

A more than decent morning for Team Europe, one that taught us this: if we ever find ourselves in the trenches we want that Sergio Garcia chap alongside us.

Afternoon. Padraig and Paul were playing Chad and Zach. For those who don't follow golf, Chad and Zach weren't the Irish pair.

A more than decent afternoon for Team Europe, one that taught us this: if we ever find ourselves in the trenches we want that Sergio Garcia chap alongside us.

"Will you play tomorrow?" asked Holyer. "Like he says in Monty Python, I know nothing," said Henrik Stenson. "Maybe they're still looking at Monty Python over in Sweden, but Fawlty Towers it was," said Ewen of the Fawlty Python fan from Gothenburg. Surreal.

"Day one didn't disappoint," said Livingstone, "I'm sure you're setting your alarm clock already". Of course. It's been switched to Straffan/Sydney time, we'll be alive alive o come 7am. Ish.