It’s all going Ryder Cup crazy at Oakland Hills. Nick Faldo is walking around with a Dictaphone and Paul Azinger can’t sleep. Do you think the Ryder Cup captains are feeling the pressure?

Their behaviour in Detroit has become increasingly bizarre, paranoid and, frankly, bonkers. Has anyone seen their marbles?
Faldo has taken to carrying a dictaphone around with and is insisting on recording every conversation with reporters. Does he think there is a media agenda to catch him out? “Yeah, could be,” he told me, after pressing the start button.

Azinger, meanwhile, admitted that he keeps waking up in the middle of the night as yet another Ryder Cup idea pops into his head. “I keep a notepad by my bed,” he said, “and write down my ideas before I fall back asleep and forget them.” Little ideas like how to stop getting thrashed.

Faldo and Azinger also admitted they have been winding each other up with text messages. “I can take the P out of Zinger and he can take the P out of me,” Faldo said. "He’s fun to be around.” Azinger said: “It’s not a comedy act but I try to wind Nick up. It’s fun.”

Azinger has even invented a new word. In a classic President Bush-ism he said he doesn’t need to “motivate or inspirate” his team next month. Inspirate? “Is inspirate a word?” Azinger said, catching himself. “Well, it rhymed, though,” he laughed. Nurse!

...The End of the Golf is A Long Way Off.

“And on the third day there will be rain and there will be lightening.” At 2.16pm play was suspended so that people can run for the hills at Oakland Hills, or start building arks, or simply huddle beneath umbrellas and pray. The sky has turned purple, storm clouds have turned day into night, thunder is rumbling, lightening crackling – and golf writers are cowering beneath their desks in the media center (sic). Either the end of the world is nigh or Hollywood is filming another opening scene for a Bram Stoker’s Dracula movie.
Rain is leaking through the aircraft hanger and one poor chap from CBS Sports is in for a shock when he returns to his workstation. Assuming he hasnn’t been washed away in the Biblical storm raging outside. His laptop is directly under a waterfall. But his neighbour is far too busy saving his own hide, and scrambling to pack away his own gear, to care about Good Samaritan stories. “I’m not touching somebody else’s computer,” he said after I yell at him to help out Absent CBS Sports Man. It’s not as if I just asked him to sleep with Mrs CBS Sports while her man was away on active duty. What’s his problem? Does he think the laptop is going to blow up? It’s every man (and woman) for themselves in here. There’s no solidarity in a crisis.
Panic-stricken PGA staff are handing out towels and, bizarrely plastic bags to put our laptops in. But if we do that, how are we supposed to type? I am tapping this report from beneath my desk as the water pitter-patters all around above my head. If some of the stories filing out of the US PGA Championship seem a little watery, please be patient. You now know why.

The media center (sic) at Oakland Hills is a hermetically sealed eco-unfriendly living environment. A steel-reinforced circus big top tent the size of an aircraft hanger. Which is apt because the air-conditioning system sounds like the PGA of America has parked a fleet of F1 fighter jets just outside – and left the engines running. The constant white nose drone is enough to drive a man INSANE.
It’s just as well the ice cream is free. There’s a stress-busting, cholesterol busting choc-ice the size of a brick that just glows from the fridge in its sexy silver wrapper. Had one the other day in the media dining room to wash down breakfast. It wasn’t a proud moment. “It’s never too early for a Klondike. Go mining for one today,” is the advertising slogan that slipped through the net.
Fruit and yoghurt for breakfast is the only sensible option. The cooked variety comes in the form of what must be scrambled egg (because it is yellow) but is more likely to be the gunge that children mould into dinosaurs and things.
There are biscuits, too. But on no account are they to be dunked in mugs of tea. They are basically scones with a claggy sort of sausage meat road kill squashed in the middle. Even the writers from Scotland (home of the deep-fat fried mars bar) won’t go near them.
All the media has been issued with luncheon vouchers, which are exchanged for two meals a day and a snack. Sadly it’s not quite as much fun as the luncheon vouchers that got Cynthia Payne in trouble in London the late 1970s when Sex in the City was something rather different than a TV show.
Although we can get a massage in the media center (sic) for $1 a minute, courtesy of the PGA’s physio department. But it probably doesn’t include the happy finish that guests received at Miss Payne’s parties.
These are tough times for the travellin’ golf writer. Ice cream, anyone?

News just in. While all eyes in the golfing world are fixed on the US PGA Championship in Oakland Hills near Detroit, Michigan, Russia has seized the opportunity to invade Georgia. Blazers at the PGA, USGA, R&A and C&A and YMCA are thought to be shocked.
According to a source close to the scene, who was on a coffee break at TGI Fridays, “large vehicles, maybe even tanks, although they could have been Hummers”, have been spotted thundering along Washington Road in Augusta. They drove by the drive-thru McDonalds and kept abreast of the action at Hooters without
stopping for wings and things.
Their attempts to turn down Magnolia Lane into Augusta National golf club were, apparently, resisted by two elderly stubborn Pinkerton guards wearing hats.
Reports are sporadic and sketchy so it is as yet unclear whether the guards were wearing anything else other than hats.
No one at Augusta National was aware of any aggressive attempt by Russians to take over the course. According to another source, “they would have to have an invite and couldn’t just arrive unannounced even if they were invading” There also appears to be no truth to rumours that next year’s Masters champion may be forced to wear a red jacket.
News update: Apparently, there has been some confusion over a fuzzy long-distance telephone call from a correspondent out in the field. It transpires that the Russians are invading the ‘other’ Georgia.
Now for the sports news: Tiger Woods is not playing in the 2008 US PGA Championship. “Hurrah,” says Phil Mickelson.” Probably.
And finally the weather: It’s hot and windy in Detroit and there’s lots of it.

There’s a theory going around at the US PGA Championship that Oakland Hills and Detroit is haunted by the Curse of Jimmy Hoffa. The infamous 1950s and 1960s labour leader, teamster and pardoned criminal was last seen alive at an Italian restaurant just across the road from the course on July 30, 1975. His body has never been found.
The Hoffa curse has already struck the players who should have been here. Gone missing with sick notes at Oakland Hills are Tiger Woods (knee), Luke Donald (wrist), Jose-Maria Olazabal (back), Shigeki Maruyama (back) and, after the first round, Kenny Perry (eye).
Colin Montgomerie is also is danger of never being seen again at a major after this week.
The US Ryder Cup team came here in 2004 boasting the World’s No.1 and 2 golfers in Woods and Phil Mickelson. They vanished without a trace or without even putting up a decent fight. They failed to show up at the K Club in 2006, too. There is just one month left to find them before the 2008 Ryder Cup starts in Kentucky. Help is needed. Please stick up posters on lampposts in your towns and cities. “Missing: US Ryder Cup team. Please call the PGA of America. Urgently.”
And whatever happened to Hapless Hal and his cowboy hat? Anyone spotted Sutton since 2004? I even heard some dude on the bus to the course today say the PGA has lost the greens at Oakland Hills. Okay, misplacing one or two is perhaps understandable.
But all 18? This Hoffa thing has got me worried. Hoffa’s great contribution to the workers included “a raise of 13 cents an hour, the guarantee of at least a half a day’s pay per day, a modest insurance plan, and recognition of the union.”
Memo to self: remember to bring this up at the next Golf Monthly editorial meeting.

The players’ guide encyclopaedia at the 90th US PGA Championship makes the funniest reading since the draft scripts of Allow dropped through the letterbox at BBC Towers. There’s a little phonetic help with how to pronounce the names of the competitors – for those who never studied Latin and modern languages at kindergarten. It’s golf’s version of Catchphrase – without the super-duper graphics.

The USPGA’s Top 10 Tongue-twisters. Answers below (bee-low)
1. kuh-ME-lo bee-JAY-gus. That’ll be the Colombian, Bejaysus, being adopted by the Detroit Oirish.
2. purr-NIECE. Sounds like the sort of noise one really shouldn’t be making when your brother’s family arrive for the weekend.
3. PAM-pling. The noise this Australian makes in the restroom anytime his name gets near a leaderboard.
4. OH-gil-vee. Which is an anagram obviously of Live Hog – with an ‘e’ left over.
5. MICK-heel. A wobbly ladies’ stiletto made by a dodgy Irish shoemaker.
6. YOCK-up-son. The only useful advice a father can offer when his son comes home drunk for the first time.
7. Ree-YOU-gee ee-MA-da. Means something to do with you relationship with your mother – in Japan.
8. Els. Should really be elz.
9. On-HEL. Anne-gel would be better if it didn’t sound so much like a personal hygiene product.
10.apple-BEE. Is this what they mean by a computer bug?

Answers (arn-suz)
1. Camilo Villegas
2. Tom Pernice
3. Rodney Pampling
4. Geoff Ogilvy
5. Shaun Micheel
6. Fredrik Jacobson
7. Ryuji Imada
8. Ernie Els (no, really)
9. Angel Cabrera
10. Stuart Appleby

Do you think Ian Poulter is desperate to make it into the Ryder Cup team?

After a late double bogey at the WGC Bridgestone Invitational last Sunday had dropped him down the leaderboard, Poulter was all too aware of the Ryder Cup points he had just let slip through his fingers. A tour insider deep throat secret undercover mole source (okay, a chap I met in the hotel bar last night) told me what he heard Poulter say after walking off the back of the 18th green.

Small children and people of a nervous disposition, please look away know: “F***, f***, f***, f***, f***.” A quite impressive tirade from a passionate and emotional guy. But Poulter still has some work to do to challenge Hugh Grant on the F***ometer. In Four Weddings and a Funeral, the floppy haired fop (as opposed to the spiky haired Bridgestone flop) and his co-stars uttered the F-word 42 times. I counted. Okay, I googled.

But Four Weddings is only ranked 80th in the list of movies that fully embrace the beauty and the power of the F-word. The Olympic gold medal goes to Gary Oldman’s BAFTA-winning Nil by Mouth, which uses the F-word 470 times in 128 minutes. That’s 3.76 times per minute. Now that’s an effing lot of effing.

Speaking of which, I’d better eff off and see how the early groups are fairing out there on Oakland Hill’s Monster course. It’s effing hard, apparently (that’s enough F-word – Ed)

Welcome to the 90th US PGA Championship at Oakland Hills, near Detroit, Michigan. A sign outside the entrance lists the banned items that will ensure spectators come to no harm and have a nice day. Ah, heck, it's no fun at golf tournaments these days. Killjoys.

1. No Cell phones, radios, televisions, hand-held games, MP3 players, iPods, etc. Which is a shame because I was going to set up my 42-inch flatscreen TV by the 18th green and work on my tan and crank up the volume on my Bruce Springsteen Greatest Hits CD. “Born in the U.S.A.” Quiet, please.

2. No food, bikes, coolers, signs and banners, ladders. Bad news, then, for window cleaners and burglars.

3. No weapons, regardless of permit. Arms dealers, please note, you are not welcome here – even if you do have a letter from your despotic dictator.

4. No dogs and other pets. Other pets? Llamas? Snakes? Gerbils? Donkeys?

5. No oversized chairs with wide arm rests. There must have been some incident last year with students carrying in sofas with those drinks holders at the end of their arms (the arms of the sofas, not the students).

6. No other items deemed unlawful or dangerous. Like air-to-surface missile launchers, then, and pencils, which, when sharpened, can poke a chap’s eye out.

Three down and one to go. Well actually one to go plus another rather large, rather exciting, rather biennial event. The 37th Ryder Cup has cast a huge shadow over the final Major of the year and the USPGA is all the better for it.

Occasionally seen as the poor relation to the other three Majors (personally I think it’s misnomer) it is a Championship that now boasts not only the strongest field of the entire year but also incalculable layers of intrigue that will have us scouring all ends of the leaderboard.

Best of all… surely it has to be watching your friend and mine Mr Colin Montgomerie huffing and puffing his way through the Detroit heat with the inevitable good early round getting the press and the fans thoroughly over-excited before he spectacularly implodes and “stares” his way to an MC. All the while of course Nick Faldo will be seen on TV looking rather smug and preparing not to pick the big man. He won’t will he… I want him to, I would pay him to in fact but he just won’t, will he? It’s just not Faldo’s style. Damn it – still it’ll make great TV.

Add to the boiling pot the likes of Justin Rose, Martin Kaymer, Ian Poulter and Sergio Garcia, all of whom are by no means sure of their place and suddenly the fact that a random American is more than likely to walk off with the far too big Wannamaker Trophy – the Americans have never quite grasped that bigger is not always better – really won’t matter.

In that vein, here’s one little tip-bit that you might want to consider before you place your bets this year – in the course of our ever-extensive research for this microsite (they don’t just pop out of cyberspace you see) we found that technically no European has ever won the USPGA. The Championship only became a stroke play event in 1958, since when just eight non-Americans have won, including no Europeans! In fact you have to go back 78 years to Tommy Armour to find the last European victor in the match play format.

So perhaps I won’t lump all my salary on Monty this time (I am sharp, very sharp).

Our man LIVE in Detroit, Paul Mahoney, will be keeping you up-to-date with all the action on and off the course – don’t miss it.