Reguly: So maybe this golf thing will be fun after all

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Now I get it. But I didn't really get it until the crack of dawn today, when the sun was coming up over misty Gleneagles while thousands of golf fans were piling into the makeshift stadium that surrounded the first hole like a horseshoe. Here, laid out before me like an Imax film, was not just a travel ad for Scotland at it finest, but for golf at its finest.

The Ryder Cup was about to begin.

I am not a golf writer; I am largely an economics and finance writer. I have never covered a golf game in my quarter century as a hack. The last time I played golf was about 20 years ago, in Niagara-on-the-Lake, with my beer salesman buddy Eric. We were tired and emotional after a hard night on the bottle, screamed at one another for a few miserable holes and, at one point, threatened to brain each other with our clubs. That was it; I have not lifted a putter or even stepped on a golf course since then.

So when The Globe and Mail's sports editor asked me to cover the Ryder Cup, I laughed, then moaned when I realized she was serious. "I don't want you to write a putt-by-putt analysis," she explained. "Just go write and see what happens."

So there I went, to Gleneagles, Scotland, within days of the independence referendum that went against the nationalists. I was armed with printouts of golf terms, a couple of books on the Ryder Cup and a bad attitude. Like most non-golfers, I considered golf a rather tedious game played by boring rich white men bent on avoiding their families or destroying their marriages or both. Don't get me wrong. I fully understood that sinking the little white ball in the cup at one under par required enormous skill. But the pain and disappointment involved in getting to that level seemed an exercise in masochism. A good walk spoiled, indeed.

My first day at Glenagles, Wednesday, hardly lifted my spirits. September in Scotland is like February in Rome, where I live and where anything less than 25C triggers a raid on the sweater drawer. It was cold, grey and wet. The press conferences given by the U.S. and European captains and their players were ridden with clichés. Tom Watson, the U.S. captain, would say things like "Every match is important" and '"They have a job to do." The Europeans were more articulate, but not much more.

Thursday was better, because the clouds parted and the crowds began to arrive in force. Such enthusiasm! And the competition had not even started. Thousands of them where intently watching the Ryder Cup players take practice shots. They were talking about Medinah, the 2012 Ryder Cup that turned a sure victory by Team America into their greatest humiliation since the event started in 1927. Could the Europeans punish them again?

The nationalists were tickled that one of the biggest sporting events on the planet was happening on home turf and that Stephen Gallacher, a Scotsman who lives only 60kms from Gleneagles, had made the team. Any sighting of Rory McIlroy, the Ulsterman who is the world's top-ranked player, was, for them, a thrill.

So maybe this will be fun after all, I thought. If the players were white and rich and pampered to the man, at least the crowds were down to earth, unaffected and genuinely enthusiastic about golf, a sport they the Scots invented, and the Ryder Cup in particular. In Scotland, golf is not an elitist sport; it is one for the masses.

By Friday morning, I was a Ryder Cup convert. I got up at 5am to catch a 6am bus from Glasgow to Gleneagles to ensure I would arrive in time for the 7:35am four balls tee-off. So did tens of thousands of others. It was cold, but the sun was coming up, exposing the lush green Ochil Hills. Perfect.

Not long after 7am, the chanting and the cheering started and the place took on the atmosphere of a football stadium. At one point, a small deer scampered across the fairway. When Scotland's favourite golfing son, Gallacher, arrived and took a few practice swings, the crowd sang "Glory, Glory Stephen Gallacher" in full-throated Scottish splendour. McIlroy's arrival for the fourth, and final, four balls pairing triggered shouts of "Ole, Ole" and foot stomping.

By then, the sun was blazing and the clash between the 24 greatest golfers in the world was underway and moving fast. I'm watching every minute of it, even if I barely understand the game. I do understand the fist-pumping enthusiasm of the crowds.