There were storms raging above the crowded tent when Rory McIlroy took his seat inside and presented a vision of calm on the eve of Ryder Cup.

Tub-thumping? Calls for chaos? There was none of that. Nor were there any of the slips we know so well, where he tries to keep his trap shut and then allows a little venom to escape.

This wasn’t one of those days. Not in the tent adjacent to the vast grandstand, in front of which this ludicrous and brilliant rivalry of the United States and Europe will resume at 7.10am local time (12.10pm UK time) on Friday.

So naturally McIlroy was asked about him, and specifically about DeChambeau’s claims a while ago that he would be ‘chirping’ in his ear all day long if they are grouped together at Bethpage Black.

Of course, it’s well known by now what McIlroy thinks of this chirper, whom he crushed beneath a wall of cold silence at the Masters in April and against whom he choked so dramatically at the US Open of 2024. His recent description of DeChambeau? An ‘attention seeker’. But there was no repeat of that in this tent; only a theatrical pause.

Rory McIlroy was calm and collected when speaking to the press ahead of the Ryder Cup

European captain Luke Donald has urged his players not to get involved with the media frenzy 

‘I promised Luke Donald I would only talk about the European Team today,’ McIlroy told us through his smirk, and it would seem that, occasionally, you can say an awful lot while saying nothing.

For instance, you could say a lot about his genuine sense of irritation around DeChambeau. And you could say even more about how Europe’s captain, Donald, has approached the monumentally tough task of landing the first away win in 13 years.

Fanning the flames of a hostile environment? Donald’s masterplan has been to do the exact opposite. He wants to disarm them with autographs. With flattery. With silence.

But can that work? Can all the diligence, colour schemes, syrupy symbolism and statistical analysis really count for more in this arena of overblown, overthought bluster than the effects of being heckled by rowdy New Yorkers on your backswing?

Along with many other questions, that one sits at the heart of the 45th Ryder Cup – an edition that ranks as the most important and highly charged in decades. 

The picks for the foursomes matches to kick off proceedings on Friday have been revealed 

There will be four foursomes matches in total at the start of the weekend’s action

A CHANCE TO MAKE HISTORY 

There is no denying the scale of what Europe are trying to achieve here against Keegan Bradley’s team. Winning away in the Cup has become of the greatest challenges in sport, which is why Donald has returned for a second term after successfully adding the US to the ruins of Rome two years ago.

Donald, 47, holds the rare distinction of having won twice on US soil as a player, in 2004 and 2012, but the fact that Europe or combinations of Britain and Ireland have managed it only four times in 98 years is the relevant context.

The US, for so long the big brother in this squabble, have not won on the road since 1993, but the broader issue here is that the matches have stopped being close. In the past five editions, the home side has won by a landslide. For one of sport’s great contests to maintain its status, it desperately needs an away win soon, or at the very least a close match.

McIlroy, who was part of the Miracle of Medinah in 2012, knows the stakes. As he said on Thursday: ‘We are playing for history. Winning another away Ryder Cup would be one of the greatest accomplishments of my career.’

Donald has selected 11 of the 12 players who won the Ryder Cup in Rome two years ago

McIlroy, then 23, with the Ryder Cup trophy back in 2012 after the ‘Miracle of Medina’

THE TRUMP CARD 

The New York crowd has been interpreted, with a little too much earnestness, as golf’s version of Galatasaray away. But the spice will be heightened by Trump’s presence for the afternoon fourballs session on the opening day.

Quite aside from the disruption that will cause to the logistics of increased security, it will also charge the atmosphere further.

There has often been a fine line between patriotic fervour and over-the-top behaviour. Witness Colin Montgomerie’s father walking off the course in disgust after his son was heckled mercilessly at Brookline in 1999, or the vile abuse aimed at Shane Lowry’s wife at Whistling Straits in 2021. Extending the genre, Matt Fitzpatrick’s parents are staying away this time after calls for his throat to be slit that same year, and McIlroy got in heated rows with the crowd at Hazeltine in 2016.

Trump’s presence will certainly add to the frenzy, even if the European players have been briefed that he will not be ‘roaming’ the fairways or tee boxes.

In a departure to Luke Donald’s silent strategy, the US players are actively encouraging the madness – Collin Morikawa has called for ‘absolute chaos’ and ‘craziness’. So far that has not materialised in the build-up, with the most notable heckling coming from those who chanted ‘Ozempic’ at Jon Rahm. By Rahm’s account it was ‘very funny’.

McIlroy, the European figurehead, is expected to get the brunt of it again, with the combustible duo of Tyrrell Hatton and Bob MacIntyre seen as likely targets.

Donald Trump is set to attend the action on Friday which will only heighten the atmosphere

Keegan Bradley’s side will be backed by patriotic support at Bethpage Black in New York

THE PROTAGONISTS 

The beauty of this particular match is how close it appears on paper. Europe have the Masters champion in McIlroy, the LIV champion in Rahm and the winner of the PGA Tour’s Tour Championship in Tommy Fleetwood.

They also have Justin Rose and Bob MacIntyre, who have been runners up in majors this season, and 11 of the 12 who won in Rome, with the only change being Rasmus Hojgaard in for his twin brother Nicolai. Loading his team with experience was Donald’s stated aim from the start.

The Europeans have long made a play of intimating that the Cup means more to them than the US. Those narratives have been helped by the US breaking with tradition by being paid to be here (£400,000 a man) after Patrick Cantlay’s hat protests two years ago.

McIlroy touched on deeper themes of a related point on Thursday, when he detailed his memory of European players crying in the team room in 2010 when a dying Seve Ballesteros contacted them in a conference call. ‘That’s the embodiment of what the European Ryder Cup Team is,’ McIlroy said.

Naturally, the Americans resent the suggestion of diminished motivation, but the stereotype of a European team versus a US collective of singular, unbonded titans is decades old. It was cemented by Tiger Woods’s dismal record in this unique format (one win from eight Cups) and has only diminished slightly in subsequent years.

That being said, the US have the greatest golfer since Woods in Scottie Scheffler. Factoring in Morikawa, Russell Henley, Harris English, Xander Schauffele, Ben Griffin, JJ Spaun and Justin Thomas, they have eight of the world’s top 11 and the winners of seven of the past eight majors, which includes DeChambeau, the world No 21.

The quality of players on each team is exceptional (pictured Team Europe’s Tommy Fleetwood)

McIlroy may come up against Bryson DeChambeau and the pair have a longstanding rivalry

Their quality is exceptional, even if Europe have more natural pairings and a stronger habit of being greater than the sum of their parts.

The challenge for Bradley will be to buck that trend by proving his hasty, belated appointment last year (once Woods rejected the role) was not a signifier of a team lacking in direction. Donald’s diligence over the tiniest details has been held up as a stark contrast to a captain whose reign has occasionally seemed chaotic, including the dilemma over whether he should pick himself to play.

WHAT WE WANT TO SEE 

A close match. And within it a series of memorable duels. Ideally that would pit McIlroy against Scheffler in the first singles tie on Sunday. Failing that, DeChambeau would do nicely.