Practice days turned out to be more enjoyable than I thought.  The first major difference is that the golfers are much more approachable.  The US team was happily signing autographs on more than a few flags, hats and other souvenirs.  Often times you would see individuals running around with a dozen 18th hole flags with signatures.  No doubt those were headed to e-Bay as soon as they went home.

The Ryder Cup feels different in another way as well.  Since there is only 6 - 7 groups on the course at any one point in time, a full two thirds of the course is a ghost town for most of the day.  This is remarkably different than the last event I went to at Valhalla which was the PGA Championship in 2000.  In 2000, there were people everywhere.  This time, the same number of people will be there on Sunday but all of them will be focused on six holes at a time.

In any case, the day was a perfect 78 degrees with a slight wind blowing in thanks to hurricane Ike passing through last weekend.  The course is immaculate and many props need to go out to the crew that cleaned up after the aforementioned hurricane that had no national coverage beyond a certain Texas city that shall not be named.  The crew cleaned up the place and you really couldn't tell that the storm was there.  What a day.  What an experience.  Thanks Junior and Rodger for getting the tickets and taking me along with you two.  That's probably something I'll only get to do once in my life and it was worth every minute of it.  :)

Pictures from Junior's camera because I refused to carry around my wife's pink camera again.