He needed to see Europe’s captain immediately. It just would not wait. The “biggest problem of the week”.

Torrance promptly slung a towel around his dripping waist and told Fulke, one of four Ryder Cup rookies in the Europe team, to come straight round.

“I go to the door and his face is ashen,” recalled Torrance this afternoon. “I thought what has happened? And he says ’Sam, I can’t do my tie’.

“I could have killed him.”

All the focus so far at this Ryder Cup might have been on police roadblocks, marksmen toting sub-machine guns, a list of petty restrictions of par five dimensions including no phones, no cameras, no prams and no picnic boxes, but the story of Fulke and his wind-up of the skipper tells you the genuinely uplifting mood amid the Europe camp.

Tension? Pressure? Not at The Belfry. Not yet anyway.

“They’re having a ball out there. They’re laughing and joking. They’re gambling,” said Torrance. “The camaraderie is fantastic. We’ve got great team spirit. Brilliant.”

Such evidence, it has to be said, was there for all to see this morning as both teams took to the course to practise their foursomes – with the lead coming most definitely from Torrance himself.

He set the light-hearted tone when he careered through the crowds in his golf buggy to the first tee, a little late after attending the early photo-shoot and anxious not to miss Europe’s first foursomes group of Thomas Bjorn and Darren Clarke playing with Fulke and Phillip Price.

So anxious that in his haste he zipped past the putting green where Europe were completing their preparations and was just about to gatecrash the United States tee-time when he realised with a typically Torrance stage whisper: “Och, it’s the bloody Americans.”

From then on it was a laugh-a-minute, in between drags on the ever-present cigarette, as chain-smoking Torrance did what he does best – relaxed concentration.

Not for Torrance the impassioned demeanour of Seve Ballesteros, who roared around Valderrama with all the gung-ho of General Patton invading some foreign beach.

Not for Torrance the biting sarcasm of Mark James – one of his assistants here and a man who had the American media rolling in the aisles with his deadpan delivery at Brookline.

Torrance, the moustachioed 2002 vintage, is a cross between Groucho Marx and everyone’s favourite uncle – a wisecracking and ultimately wise man whose most lethal weapons are his warmth and his humour.

So there was a hug for Sergio Garcia, Europe’s youngest competitor, a personal individual chat and, judging by the laughter, a one-liner with each member of his 12-strong team before practice commenced, and a hilarious meeting with his dad and coach Bob on the second fairway whom he reprimanded ever so gently for taking the keys with him every time he stepped off his golf buggy.

“No-one’s going to steal it dad,” reasoned Sam.

Indeed, you can’t buy the sort of disarming nature which emanates from Torrance, whose attention to detail even stretches to having ordered cashmere sweaters for Europe’s caddies for Sunday – “so it’ll probably be a sunny day and they’ll not wear them”.

Not that the man whose experience stretches to eight Ryder Cups as a player is relying entirely on a charm offensive.

There is psychology, too, in the shape of a rack of motivational videos – one of which lasts 15 minutes and is a compilation of the best shots of all 12 players put to stirring music.

“We play it and it really lifts them,” said Torrance, whose team room apparently has so far been alive with wind-ups and team-building banter as opposed to the all-action approach of the ping-pong playing Americans.

“There’s nothing you can do about nerves. If you’re not nervous there’s something wrong with you.

Nerves create adrenaline I’ve told them to use that in their own advantageous way to make them feel better, get pumped up and psyched up.

“Not that they need to be psyched up, they’re so excited. For the newcomers it’s a wonderful experience. The camaraderie in the team room, the gifts, the dinners, the practice rounds.”

So how much is Ryder Cup success down to the players and how much due to the cunning of the aptain? It’s a question the self-effacing Torrance answers without pause.

“It’s all on the players,” he said. “They’re the guys out there. I’m just the shepherd, herding them out. I can obviously do the preparation and put the pairings together but in the end they’re the boys who do it. They can take the credit. I’ll take the blame.”

For once he was being entirely serious. He really is that kind of guy.