Things have not been going well for our American friends here at Marco Simone. After that humbling humping on day one, Team USA didn’t just have their backs against the wall, they were just about embedded in the pointing.

In the tented village, meanwhile, there are myriad distractions to help downbeat US fans take their mind off affairs on the course. There’s even a viewing point where you can gaze at the distant Vatican and perhaps ask for divine intervention. The USA needed more than a few Hail Marys.

Yesterday, ticket holders were informed that the Ryder Cup itself would be on show in one of the marquee tents. US skipper Zach Johnson was first in the queue. It was the only way he was going to get close to the bloomin’ thing.

*As a radical change from all that delightful pasta, pizza, pesto and polenta, the diarist and his colleague opted for a culinary crusade at a Peruvian restaurant.

“One of Peru’s national dishes is roasted guinea pig,” I said while leafing through the menu. “That’s disgusting,” snorted my learned friend as he licked three-day old sugo off the side of his shoe.

To wash our supper down, we opted for Peru’s national drink. “Pisco?,” said my colleague. “I will be after a few of these,” the diarist replied.

*You get all sorts at a Ryder Cup. There are punters dressed up as Roman Gladiators, Viking Warriors and bananas. There’s a bloke in an Abraham Lincoln costume kicking about too.

The diarist bumped into a jovial American fan out on the course who was singing the theme tune to Bonanza while vigorously waving a blow-up horse.

Given the horsing the visitors were getting at the time, it was the first thing I’d seen in the US camp that wasn’t deflated.