Martin Dempster’s Ryder Cup diary

Martin Dempster reports from Rome ahead of the Ryder Cup.

Transcript

00:00 Hello, it's Martin Dempster, the Scotsman Golf Correspondent here coming to you live

00:06 from Marcos Simone Golf Club. The sun's setting on the first official practice day for the

00:12 44th Ryder Cup and it's been a busy old day. The players got out on the course for the

00:18 first time. The Europeans, they went out on the front nine, the Americans on the back

00:24 nine just to get themselves acclimatised to the course again and the crowds are out in

00:31 force. It's always a huge event, 55,000 fans are going to be here on the three match days

00:38 starting on Friday and it's always huge anticipation for this magnificent event. Bob McIntyre,

00:47 he was out this morning in a group with Justin Rose, Matthew Fitzpatrick and Nikolaj Hozard

00:53 and Bob had already played with Justin Rose and Matthew Fitzpatrick in the opening two

01:00 rounds of the recent BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth so maybe that's giving an indication

01:06 that he might play with one of them, perhaps in the four balls on Friday afternoon. We

01:14 had a total of ten players in the media centre interview area today, six Europeans, four

01:21 Americans all offering their views on the week ahead. Shane Lowry and John Ram shared

01:29 some thoughts about some emotional messages that have been shown to the European players,

01:35 personal messages, family related messages. Luke Donald's going down the route that Paul

01:41 McGinley and others have used in bringing success to Europe in this event. So, terrific

01:48 first day, keep in touch with all events about the Ryder Cup on scotsman.com and in the Scotsman.