Captains Bernhard Langer (left) and Hal Sutton with the Ryder Cup in Bloomfield Township on Wednesday. (AFP)

Bloomfield Township: The Ryder Cup begins here on Friday at Oakland Hills, but the competition actually started on Monday at about 40,000 feet as the European team flew here. That?s when Bernhard Langer handed out a small token of appreciation to each of his 12 players ? a Rolex watch. And just in case the players felt a little cramped in the jet, Langer had a massage therapist standing by.

Meanwhile, Hal Sutton decided to loosen things up at a team dinner on Monday night when he lined up a guest speaker ? Michael Jordan. On Tuesday night, Sutton hired a stand-up comic for the team dinner.

As for Langer?s Rolexes, Sutton said on Tuesday that he had gifts for his players too, something nice.

?Lamborghinis,? he joked.

So, the race is on.

Neither captain is going to swing a club, fix a divot or play a single hole during the 35th Ryder Cup matches, but Langer and Sutton will log face-time on television, speaking into their walkie-talkies, following the matches in their carts, figuring out what pairings work and don?t work, preparing themselves for the second-guessing.

Chances are they?ll do it in two very distinct styles. Langer, 47, from Anhausen, Germany, also lives in Boca Raton, Florida. As the son of a bricklayer and a waitress, he rode his bicycle five miles to a golf club to learn the game. The 1985 and 1993 Masters champion, Langer plays slowly and speaks the same way.

In his role as Ryder Cup captain, Sutton calls himself a ?benevolent dictator?, which he admits is a nice way of saying it?s his way or the freeway. He said he would listen to his assistants, Jackie Burke and Steve Jones, and then make his own decisions.

There have been occasions, Sutton said, when he has said, ?No, that?s not negotiable.?

And at the same time, Sutton has gone out of his way to be a players? captain, a role that seems to have come easily. Langer might have chosen a somewhat rockier path.

There were some negative comments directed his way when he did not go to the British Open at Royal Troon to talk to his players and assess their games.

Meanwhile, Sutton is taking a hands-on approach. For Tuesday morning?s practice, he had three foursomes at Oakland Hills ? Tiger Woods, Chris Riley, Jim Furyk and Chad Campbell; David Toms, Fred Funk, Chris DiMarco and Stewart Cink; Phil Mickelson, Davis Love III, Kenny Perry and Jay Haas.

Sutton said he hadn?t assigned partners but added that he?d talked to them all about what he expected. That part is no secret, he said, turning his back to reveal an American flag stitched on his shirt.

Not only has Sutton opened the locker room to the 12 caddies for the first time, he?s welcoming the players? wives and girlfriends too. It?s all part of his open-arms plan.

?My theory is, if you can laugh together and cry together, we can win together. That?s what we are going to do this week,? he said.

Langer has the same objective, and if he succeeds, Europe will have won seven of the last 10 Ryder Cup matches. He said what happens this week should not resemble the 1999 Ryder Cup matches at Brookline Country Club, when the European team became upset when US players celebrated a putt by Justin Leonard that all but clinched the Cup.

?Over the top,? Langer said quietly, in his style.

Not so quietly, Sutton responded in his own style to a question from a European journalist about Brookline.

?Look, y?all have been kind of a bad marriage partner. We?ve apologised for five years for what happened in 1999. So y?all need to forget about that. The American players, if we had it to do over again, would not have run out on that green. But the truth of the matter is, we?re going to be ourselves.

?So we are going out there and we?re going to be ourselves. No more apologies or anything else.?

Expect the players from both sides to be themselves, just like the two captains.