“Michael is passionate about golf and also passionate about the Ryder Cup,” explained home captain Hal Sutton.

“He joined us at dinner, got up and spoke and talked about how special it was.

“I couldn’t help thinking everybody in the room felt special.”

That, of course, was his intention in inviting Jordan.

Tiger Woods, of course, was the other superstar in the room and after another year without any majors and over six months without any tournament success the spotlight is on the recently-deposed world number one again to see if he can finally deliver on the Ryder Cup stage.

Sutton expects him to.

“Oh man, I have been licking my chops over Tiger,” he said. “I don’t think he’s in a slump – I aspire to be in his slump. If he is your only worry you have no worries.”

Who Woods will partner on Friday remains to be seen, however. As it does for the other 23 players involved.

Anybody looking for clues did not discover anything today.

With jet-lag still in the system and the Detroit course a place only two of the side – Colin Montgomerie and Darren Clarke – have visited before, Langer decided against sending his men off in pairs even.

Sutton, meanwhile, has told his team they might not know who they are going to play with until Thursday.

Instead, the first practice session for the eagerly-awaited match was like the calm before the storm.

Even the crowd seemed somewhat subdued.

And with the Europeans being told by Langer to stop and give autographs whenever they felt in a position to do so, exactly how raucous and unruly they will be come the match proper remains to be seen.

“I am going to prepare the players for the worst, but hopefully we won’t experience that,” said Langer, who along with opposite number Hal Sutton has made an appeal for good behaviour – like The Belfry two years ago and unlike Boston in 1999.

On his strategy Langer added: “The idea was to just let the guys have a good look at the course.

“I didn’t want them to worry about pairings and anything else and who plays with whom and whatnot.

"That’s not important today.

“Today is to get a feel for the course, get the game-plan going.”

Pressed on whether it left him short on time to get the right pairings the German, meticulous in all he does in life, disagreed.

“Not at all. We have two more days, if that’s necessary, to try this or that. I don’t even think that’s necessary, but there will be a few of them going out with who they might end up playing on Friday or Saturday.

“I think it would be wrong for me to send the guys out and play fourballs or foursomes and worry too much about the match and not pay attention to the course.”

Sutton said: “I’ve told my players not to read anything into the practice pairings. They have no clue – if they did they would start worrying about their partner’s game and I don’t want that.”

Just for the record then the 12 Europeans were sent out in threes and the Americans in fours. Sergio Garcia and Lee Westwood, who had three wins out of four at The Belfry two years ago, were together again, with Montgomerie the other in the group.

Padraig Harrington and Miguel Angel Jimenez, who played the foursomes in Boston five years ago, were with Luke Donald, while Paul McGinley, the match-winning hero two years ago, was with two more of the uncapped players in Ian Poulter and Thomas Levet.

And the other was Darren Clarke with rookies Paul Casey and David Howell – but that was best explained that they first had to do the media round of television, radio and press interviews.

As for the Americans, Woods went first with Jim Furyk and rookies Chad Campbell and Chris Riley and, after a long gap, David Toms, Stewart Cink, Chris DiMarco and Fred Funk were the next group and Phil Mickelson, Davis Love, Kenny Perry and 50-year-old Jay Haas the other.

Langer accepts the home side can “tweak” the course to their advantage, but he describes the Oakland Hills set-up as “fair”, with the rough not as thick as at US Opens – “punishing, but playable” – and the greens only moderately quick.