By Brian Keogh

Copyright independent

Luke Donald’s strategic advisor, Paul McGinley, said in a conference call to promote NBC’s coverage that the set-up is “right out of the American playbook”.

“The rough is not as penal as it would be in a US PGA or US Open that have been played there before,” McGinley said after Europe’s first scouting trip for an away match.

“The fairways are pretty generous at the moment, because they’re soft and, you know, they may firm up next week. We don’t know yet.

“Greens as well are pretty soft. They may firm up next week. We don’t know yet. Green speeds at the moment are probably running around 12; they’re probably moving up to about 13, and a couple of the tee boxes are moved up.

“The 17th is about 30 yards shorter than it was certainly for the US Open, when I played in 2002, and the first tee box has obviously been moved up about 35 or 40 yards in order to get the stand in behind the tee.

“So all in all, it’s what we expected. It’s right out of the American playbook of what they do when they play at home, and they’ve been very successful doing it.

“So why change, which is generally having rough that’s not too thick, trying to encourage a fast pace of low scoring. It’s been very successful in the past when they’ve played at home.”

McGinley has made no secret of the fact that Europe has spent 18 months preparing for what they expect to be a hugely difficult task in a hostile atmosphere.

But he saw a united 12-man team on Long Island this week, where players learned their likely partners for foursomes and fourballs.

“It was a very small, tight-knit group,” he said.

“We had meetings. We played one and a half rounds, and we got a real good look at the golf course and shared more extensive and elaborate ideas with each player about what their potential role is for the week and their potential partners as well.

“They’ve all got five days off. They’ve all gone to different places, but we have asked them to stay on East Coast time, or as close to it as they can, which they’ve all done.

“Nobody’s returning to Europe for these five days, so we’re not having to deal with jet lag next week. We’ve never done that before for any away match we’ve had.”

NBC is pulling out the stops next week and will have more cameras than ever for a Ryder Cup on US soil, including three drones, a plane, multiple bunker cams and broadcast booth cameras.

There will be cameras from the practice area to the first tee to capture players’ every step as they walk to their opening tee shot.

For the first time at a Ryder Cup, NBC Sports will also utilise Trackman at all 18 tee boxes.

There will be analysis from Americans Notah Begay III and Brad Faxon and former European captains McGinley and Nick Faldo, but NBC will be moving away from its neutral commentary style and allowing US commentators to say “we” and “us” rather than “the US” or “the Americans”.

“We’ve always covered our sports events in a completely impartial way, never referring to the Americans as we,” producer Tommy Roy said.

“I used to have to correct Johnny Miller quite often when he would say, ‘We have to win this hole’. And I hit him in the headset, saying, ‘Oh, Johnny, not we, the Americans’.

“But if you work the Olympics like we’ve had the good fortune to do, and you’re in the international broadcast centre, you can dial up the feeds from the different countries’ broadcasts, and they are almost all very partisan… But you know what? It’s actually a pretty fun listen.

“So our executive producer, Sam Clarke, said, let’s give it a shot at Bethpage. We experimented with it at the Presidents Cup last year, but for the Ryder Cup, with its two fervent fan bases, we are all in now.

“This is not going to be the new norm at NBC Sports, but at Bethpage, this is what we’re doing.”

Faxon expects rookie Ben Griffin to be one of the big stars for the US, and McGinley agreed, adding that he also expects New Yorker Cameron Young to play a big role, Matt Fitzpatrick to improve his dismal record and LIV’s Tyrrell Hatton to go well.

As for the potentially wild atmosphere, McGinley reckons it’s partly a sign of the times.

“I think this is a society issue, whether it’s the advent of social media or whatever, but there certainly seems to be a change in human behaviour, and people’s behaviour, certainly at sporting events, where people are a little bit more front-footed, a little bit more aggressive in their tone than they might have been in the past.

“We are aware that New York fans are very passionate about their sport and that it’s going to be the noisiest atmosphere that a Ryder Cup has ever had, and that includes some of the European venues.

“So we’re expecting that. We’re anticipating a lot of work behind the scenes in preparing the players for that atmosphere and trying to perform in that atmosphere.

“We’ve had some expert speakers in — I am not going to say who they are, but Luke will tell you that next week.

“We’ve taken a lot of advice from a lot of people who have performed in these arenas, and we feel we’re a very well-prepared team for what this huge challenge is going to be away from home.”