The PGA Tour is taking a break this week to set the stage for what should be a rousing Ryder Cup beginning next Friday at the Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky.

Greg Nichols, Ko Olina Golf Club's director of golf and a close friend of U.S team captain Paul Azinger, wanted to create an awareness of the 37th biennial event, so he invited the local print and radio/tv media types to play a challenge match using the Ryder Cup format of bestball, alternate shot and match play.

KHNL's Howard Dashefsky and I were named team captains and it was easy enough to round up the usual suspects of would-be golfers. Only trouble was, neither Dash nor I wanted to be Nick Faldo, this year's European team captain.

The colors flying Monday were USA red, white and blue, including miniature American flags at every tee box. When a tourist playing behind the last group noticed that everyone was wearing red or blue Ryder Cup shirts and matching golf caps, he asked, "Blue state or red state?" Dash replied without missing a beat, "United States."

The radio/TV types wore blue and the print media red, which seemed appropriate because we were embarrassed, 9-3. But Dash can be blamed for lulling us into a false sense of security. On the first tee the former University of Hawai'i baseball 'Bow took a mighty swing and his ball disappeared for a few seconds before it landed — a foot behind him.

It was the second worst golf shot Nichols and I had ever seen. The first? Also by Dashefsky when we were playing at the Waialae Country Club with Lanny Wadkins, a year after he had won the United Airlines Hawaiian Open for the second straight year. Dash's tee shot at that first hole went through his legs and dead left into the cart barn. You had to see it to believe it.

"It was like deja vu all over again," said Nichols, then Waialae's head golf professional. Dashefsky more than made up for his minus-yardage drive when he hit a 290-yard tee shot and sank a 10-foot putt for birdie at the 15th hole.

I'm just giving Dash a little grief because his team won. Anyway, a good time was had by all and like the real Ryder Cup, the outing benefited Ho'okipa Po'okela, a golf school program for students in the Nanakuli area and one of Ko Olina's charities.

Azinger, a long-time gallery favorite at Waialae CC, where he won the 2000 Sony Open in Hawai'i for his 12th PGA Tour victory, sent his regards to the local media through Nichols, even donating two autographed Ryder Cup golf caps.

He faces a daunting task of trying to end the recent domination by the Europeans in the Ryder Cup. They've won five of the last six, including crushing 18 1/2-to-9 1/2 victories in the last two meetings. He won't have Tiger Woods on a 12-man team that will include six rookies. But Azinger has said all along that experience isn't everything, noting that the Americans had lost five of the last six Ryder Cups, "so most of their experiences are bad experiences."

If anything, adds Azinger, "I think the pressure, really, would be on them a little more than maybe it's going to be on us. For the first time in a long time, Europe is going to have kind of everything to lose here in these matches. It's usually the other way around."

Maui's Mark Rolfing, golf analyst for NBC, which will be televising the event, hopes Azinger will ensure that there's a definite home-field advantage. He felt it was lacking when the Americans hosted the 2004 Ryder Cup at Oakland Hills CC in Michigan.

"It's important that Azinger get the American team to put on a show early in the week for the fans at Louisville before the matches even start," he said.

"What happened in Detroit four years ago was interesting. During the practice rounds, the Americans played in the morning and basically left. The European team played in the morning and played again in the afternoon. There were 40,000 fans out there with no golf to watch other than the Europeans, who later hung around signing autographs. Colin Montgomery was out there hugging babies and won over the fans. That thing took away the home-field advantage from the Americans."

Rolfing also hopes that Azinger, as the host captain's prerogative, will set up the golf course to make it easier with friendlier pin placements, perhaps putting them in the center of the greens.

"What happens in the Ryder Cup, in my experience, is if there are really hard pin placements, the Americans, who don't play a lot of match play, shoot away from them like they would in stroke play. They have this stroke-play mentality," Rolfing explained. "They play too conservatively whereas the Europeans are more aggressive. I saw a lot of that in Ireland two years ago. So I would really think through how the course is set up. I think that it's important for Paul to do that."

As for the captain's picks, Rolfing was shocked that Faldo didn't select Darren Clark, who won twice this year and went 3-0 in the last Ryder Cup. Instead he went with fellow Brits Ian Poulter, whose only impressive showing this year came in the British Open, and Paul Casey.

"Azinger had a different dilemma. He really didn't have anybody that clearly stood out in the last month or so other than maybe Steve Stricker, who was automatic. I do have to hand it to Azinger for picking Hunter Mahan after his negative comments about the Ryder Cup. But that was before he was picked," Rolfing said.

Also, adds Rolfing, Azinger can't go around being Mr. Nice Guy, when it comes to deciding who to sit out during the first two days of team matches.

"Nick Faldo is a thick-skinned guy. He doesn't care at all what his players think as to who plays in the matches. It's more difficult for the American captain to sit a player down. You're going to see Faldo hide some of his weaker players early on. He's going to load up his top players early.

"The Europeans are the favorites but I think the Americans have a chance to win. The key is that they have to get off to a good start in the team matches. They can't get behind again. Every point is important, not only mathematically, but psychologically. I think it's going to be a really exciting Ryder Cup. It's probably one of the most important the American side has faced in a long, long time. If they don't win this one, it's going to be devastating for the whole American Ryder Cup scene."

There's another interesting story-line this year, according to Rolfing, who'll be working his seventh Ryder Cup.

"This Ryder Cup, to me, is more about the captains than any I have seen. Typically, the captains are part of the story. But, in this case, they're the biggest part of the story."