1 – Big day, lads, we have 32 golfers

Wildly enthralling as the Ryder Cup can be, here is a most sobering thought – they start at 7 a.m. and barely can get 32 rounds of golf in before the sun sets (eight team matches involving four players each).

2 – Growing the game or slowing the game?

That pace-of-play mentality would put most golf courses out of business.

3 – He deserves so much credit

Time passes, for sure. To wit, it’s likely that none of the Americans at Bethpage Black this year have a sense of how important the late Seve Ballesteros is to this spectacle. The Great One played his last Ryder Cup 30 years ago.

4 – Anyone else feel the shop closing?

At a time when the pool of talent is deeper than ever in pro golf, closing Q School and shrinking fields and taking away playing opportunities seems so wrong.

GOLF COURSE PHOTO -- Longtime Boston Globe colleague Marty Pantages emailed to say he discovered a hidden gem while on vacation in the Nashville area. While I've not had the pleasure, the name only makes it a Top 100 in my book. As always, should you stumble across a unique golf course sign, feel free to email me at jim@powerfades.com. Clearly golf course signs is a passion.

5 – Hey, we need the help, not them

Seems to me that it’s not the elite golfers who should have putts conceded to them, it’s us.

6 – Wearing (too much) blue

We need a moratorium on blue golf shirts. Enough already.

7 –Face it, they are more creative

Europeans fans beat U.S. fans 7 and 6 every Ryder Cup, song-wise. We ring out with the same ol’ “USA . . . USA . . . USA,” which is OK but hardly creative. But when the Euros bellowed out in 2010 with “there are two Molinaris” and then updated that with “there’s only one Molinari” when Francesco, but not Edoardo, played in 2012 it was pure A-game.

8 – He’s a cup guy, after all

Imagine if the USGA ran the Ryder Cup, the captain would have five picks in addition to Stewart Hagestad.

9 – Nice feel, nicer word

As nice as it is to wear a sweater on a cool fall day, it feels even better if you call it a “jumper” as they do in the UK.