The fun and games are nearly over. The jokey jabs between Europe captain Nick Faldo and U.S. counterpart Paul Azinger, the playful exchanges, the poker, fishing and golf shenanigans on TV, are a distant memory. As Faldo remarked at Heathrow Airport on Monday, the friendly banter between the two stopped weeks ago. And though the occasional smile was seen at Monday’s press conference, they were nervy, edgy smiles — the sort people give when they’re, well, edgy and nervous.

Of the two, Azinger has been forthcoming with regard to his possible pairings, though not surprisingly, he too has been keeping his cards pretty close to his chest. He has said he would like to pair the two Kentuckians, Kenny Perry and J.B. Holmes, together in the first match Friday morning to get the locals “rocking” early, and it would appear a likely pair as Perry too has readily admitted he would like to set the ball rolling with his fellow Bluegrasser. But Holmes has another willing partner in Anthony Kim, with whom he played in the 2005 Walker Cup at the Chicago Golf Club. Indeed, Kim and Holmes might be the sort of team the U.S. has been looking for over the past decade. Young, long, fresh, fearless, and patriotic, they are a duo the Euros would rather avoid. A Stewart Cink/Chad Campbell pairing, meanwhile, is certainly capable of notching a win or two but might not instill the fear of God into any of the visitors. Oliver Wilson and Soren Hansen, Europe’s least accomplished and intimidating players, included.

Actually there are very few pairings Azinger could throw together that might give the Euros pause. Yes, Phil Mickelson, Jim Furyk, Justin Leonard, and Stewart Cink are all seasoned players with plenty of Ryder Cup experience, but none has a record that suggests multiple points are guaranteed this week. It’s not America’s weakest team, and Azinger didn’t scrape any barrels when he made his four wild card picks three weeks ago — Campbell, Holmes, Hunter Mahan and Steve Stricker all deserved their places for various reasons — but, one suspects, he would have been just as happy maintaining the old system of 10 automatic qualifiers and two picks.

With Tiger Woods absent, there is no natural leader among the Americans. Mickelson is making his seventh appearance at the matches and has more experience than any of the 24 assembled players, but he doesn’t see himself as the team’s on-course leader and, frankly, why would he? After 25 matches, he has compiled a 9-12-4 record that seems to sum up his career effectively: occasionally brilliant, often disappointing. It’s not clear how important a leader among the players is, but there’s no denying the boost Seve Ballesteros gave his teammates in the ’80s and ’90s, or how significant a figure Woods would have been this week, or how important Padraig Harrington or Sergio Garcia might be for the Europeans.

Those pesky overachievers from across the pond will not be fielding their strongest ever team either, not by a long shot, and Faldo has not been guilty of any of the eyebrow-raising hyperbole of previous captains who insisted they had the 12 best players in the world on their team. Only six of the dominant dozen that won so convincingly in Ireland two years ago qualified for Valhalla, but, as usual, this year’s marauding Vikings, Spaniards, Anglo-Saxons, and Celts will form a tight-knit unit that will somehow meld together and form a fighting force whose collective total is considerably stronger than their individual merits. Not for them are the team-building exercises of the home team. There is no desire or need to visit the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, as the Americans did on Tuesday, or bring in old college basketball coaches to light the fires of passion and inspire the players to uncommon feats. Whether it be an innate pack-hunting mentality borne of a childhood spent kicking a soccer ball wherever there was space, or the universal and equally powerful desire to beat America, Europe’s 12 will come as one.

Azinger hopes his setup of the course will provide his team an advantage. At well over 7,400 yards, long hitters like Holmes, Kim, and Mickelson should feel right at home, and their captain’s decision to limit the height of the rough to 3.5 inches so as not to inhibit his bombers would seem a sensible move. But Europe is hardly burdened with a bunch of short pokes that will quiver at the sight of such length.

No, they might be hitting one more club than their opponents into the large, fast, and perfectly maintained greens, and they might find themselves with the longer birdie putt, but if the last three cups — which the Americans have lost by a combined total of 21 points — are anything to go by, they’ll hole that putt and put sufficient pressure on the opposition for them to miss.

Putting has been the difference between the two sides in recent years, of course. While Europe has made superstars and indeed bolstered their far-reaching tour on the back of holed putts at crucial moments, the U.S. has repeatedly failed to hole the putts that matter.

The 2004 and 2006 margins of victory — nine points both times — suggest the Euros are altogether better at the discipline, but statistically there’s very little between the two sides when it comes to performance on the greens. In Cink, Stricker, Leonard, and Furyk, America definitely has its share of flat-stick magicians. They, more than the power merchants, will need to step up if these biennial humiliations are to end.

tonydear71@comcast.net