The giant grandstand at the first tee of Le Golf National created an atmosphere that was intimidating and invigorating on the opening day.
ST-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — What better outfit to wear to the first Ryder Cup in France than a bicorn hat, an officer’s waistcoat and gold epaulets?
“We did our research, and we found that Napoleon played in the first Ryder Cup in 1815,” deadpanned Andy Pick, an Englishman who had crossed the Channel with a similarly dressed friend, Jonathan Brown from Bath.
“Napoleon left his putt short to lose it on the last,” Brown said. “He was missing one revolution.”
Brown and Pick, suspect historians but serious golf fans, were part of the biggest crowd at the first tee of a Ryder Cup in Europe since the inaugural event in 1927.
The crowd assembled before dawn on Friday morning to await the opening four-ball matches in a 6,900-seat temporary grandstand — a fine spot to watch the sunrise as well as some golf. There were thousands of other fans crowded onto nearby knolls and ridges by the time Justin Rose and Jon Rahm of Europe teed off against Brooks Koepka and Tony Finau of the United States shortly after 8 a.m.
“It was a hideous 4 a.m. wake-up,” said Scott Tucker, a Londoner who traveled with his brother Ollie to Le Golf National in the Paris suburbs. They came to support the side that has won six of the last eight Ryder Cups but lost the last one, two years ago in the United States.
Both were wearing custom-ordered caps that said, “Make Europe Great Again.”
Europe’s golfers did not initially cooperate, losing the morning session by 3-1. But like the wind, they picked up in the afternoon, sweeping the four alternate shot, or foursomes, matches to take a 5-3 lead and the momentum into Saturday.
“It was a bit of a roller-coaster ride, to be honest,” said Thomas Bjorn, the European captain, who has ridden a few in his years as a Ryder Cup player and leader.
One of the players who made it fun for Bjorn on Friday afternoon was Ian Poulter, the prickly English competitor who has routinely risen to the occasion at the Ryder Cup, eyes bulging and fists clenching as he embraced the pressure.
He did not make the team in 2016, largely because of an arthritic foot that made it difficult for him to walk, much less beat Americans at golf. He served instead in the shadows as a vice captain, but he was back in the sunshine and in a leading role.
He helped lift Rory McIlroy out of a morning funk as they rallied to defeat Bubba Watson and Webb Simpson, 4 and 2, in the foursomes. As the match turned into a mismatch, Poulter and McIlroy were practically walking in step between shots.
“Four years is a long wait, but the second I got going this morning, I felt good,” Poulter said. “It’s great to play with Rory. The buzz around the golf course is just incredible.”
Poulter, 42, is 12-5-2 over all in Ryder Cup play and 5-1 in foursomes. He did not play in the Friday morning session, but he was hardly sitting in the European team room with his eyes on the big screen. He was out on the first tee early, helping lead the European fans in an Icelandic thunderclap. He later climbed the steps and mingled with the throngs in the first-tee grandstand, distributing European team trinkets.
“I shared a car home with Thomas last night,” he said, referring to Bjorn. “And I just said to Thomas I would be up there early and I’m going in that grandstand.’ He didn’t say, ‘No, don’t do it.’ So I went up there to enjoy it.”
The first tee is Off Broadway at most stroke-play events, where the closing holes are the magnets. But in match play like the Ryder Cup, there is no guarantee the closing holes will be necessary: None of the foursome matches on Friday afternoon extended beyond the 16th hole.
The first tee is a sure thing, however, and it has grown into a genuine happening since the distant, quieter days of, say, 1977, when it was tucked behind the pro shop at Royal Lytham & St. Annes and the only people gathered around at the start were players, caddies and officials.
“There was nothing to it at all,” said George O’Grady, a former chief executive of the European Tour, who played a role in the change.
The first-tee infrastructure keeps growing. There were a little less than 1,900 seats in the grandstand the last time Europe hosted the Ryder Cup, in 2014 at Gleneagles in Scotland. There was even a narrow tunnel leading from the practice ground to the tee that was lined with photographs of Ryder Cup luminaries from the past, including Jack Nicklaus and Seve Ballesteros.
There is no tunnel this time, just an elevated walkway and staircase that the players and their growing Ryder Cup entourages can navigate amid the roars and the thunderclaps (or in the case of the Americans on Friday, a few whistles).
“Nothing like I’ve been a part of in my life,” said Finau, a Ryder Cup rookie who struck the first tee shot of the competition, at Koepka’s request.
“It was like a feeling of a football game back in the States, an N. F. L. football game, and I’m in the middle of the field and I have to hit a tee shot,” Finau said. “I have to make a golf swing with all that type of adrenaline.”
So much adrenaline that, despite intending to play it safe, he nearly hit his 3-iron into the water.
“The ball just kept rolling,” Finau said.
After all the morning tee shots were hit, just before 9 a.m., the first-tee grandstand all but emptied except for a few stragglers — and some American and European Union flags still dangling from the railings.
Pick and Brown were trudging off with the masses toward other greens and grandstands, their bicorn hats and epaulets firmly in place.
“We wore berets yesterday,” Brown said.
