Wadkins Has U.S. Playing Better Ball : Ryder Cup: Americans take 5-3 lead after first day as afternoon matchups work out well.

With his collar turned up and his cap pulled down, Lanny Wadkins looked just like a . . . magician?

Well, there wasn’t anything else you could call him Friday at the Ryder Cup at Oak Hill, where the United States’ captain tugged and pulled out a 5-3 lead over Europe on the first day of golf’s biennial shootout.

Wadkins used eight combinations in eight matches, played everyone on his 12-man team, got five points from Ryder Cup rookies and didn’t even rust in the rain.

For his next trick, he may saw a greenskeeper in half.

“I hope to pull a few more rabbits out of the hat tomorrow and have some fun,” Wadkins said.

Maybe, but considering how the first day went for the U.S. team, it was the most fun they could have had in the rain with an umbrella. Water-logged Oak Hill turned into Soak Hill, especially during the morning’s alternate-shot format, when the rain fell almost as hard as Nick Faldo and Colin Montgomerie, who were dumped by Corey Pavin and Tom Lehman, 1-up.

Europe’s top team didn’t do any better when the rain stopped, and the sun actually came out for a few minutes during the afternoon better-ball matches. Faldo and Montgomerie lost then too, to Fred Couples and Davis Love III, 3 and 2.

Wadkins said he wasn’t shocked by the losses by Faldo and Montgomerie.

“I mean, the guys they were playing aren’t exactly slouches,” he said.

No, the slouches this time were mostly Europeans wearing those sweaters the color of orange juice. After ending the morning tied, 2-2, the United States won three of the four matches in better ball, which is not usual.

It’s the first time since 1979 that the U.S. team won the first day’s afternoon matches, and the first-day U.S. lead is its largest since that same year.

“It was Lanny’s afternoon,” European captain Bernard Gallacher said.

The morning was something different. Pavin and Lehman got the United States the first point of the day, but Sam Torrance and Costantino Rocca defeated Jay Haas and Couples, 3 and 2.

Love and Jeff Maggert played the puddles better than Howard Clark and Mark James and won easily, 4 and 3, only to have Bernhard Langer and Per-Ulrik Johansson finish the morning with a 1-up victory over Curtis Strange and Ben Crenshaw.

It probably was more difficult than it had to be, because Pavin and Lehman were 4-up after five holes.

“I think it’s hard when you’re leading a match when someone makes a run at you to hang in there and keep with it,” Pavin said. “And we did a great job of that.”

Not without some minor fireworks, though. Faldo conceded a putt to Pavin on the second hole, but neither Pavin nor Lehman was sure that was what he was trying to do, so they asked him to repeat what he had said.

Faldo raised his arms and said, somewhat exasperatedly, “Pick it up.” An agitated Lehman answered quickly, “Well, speak clearly, then.”

Lehman said later, “It ticked me off.”

Pavin told Lehman to calm down, then smoothed things over with Faldo. Lehman called the incident a brief misunderstanding.

As it turned out, opening day was not noted for brevity. It took nearly five hours for Langer and Johansson to beat Crenshaw and Strange in the morning, when Langer sank a four-footer for par on the 18th.

It rained heavily into the early afternoon, and workers pushed squeegees across water-logged greens.

“The conditions were vile,” Crenshaw said.

The weather and the U.S. outlook improved considerably after Wadkins had played a hunch, putting rookies Maggert and Loren Roberts together.

Wadkins, who had been thinking of pairing Haas with Phil Mickelson, instead sat Haas down, paired Maggert and Roberts and put Pavin with Mickelson instead. It all worked out beautifully.

Roberts had four birdies, chipped in on No. 9, and he and Maggert trounced Torrance and Rocca, 6 and 5. Pavin and Mickelson won the first four holes against Langer and Johansson and routed them, 6 and 4.

If Wadkins was doing everything right, Gallacher wasn’t as lucky. He second-guessed himself for leaving Langer and Johansson together for the afternoon instead of playing rested and dry Ian Woosnam and Philip Walton.

“I made a mistake,” Gallacher said.

Gallacher got Seve Ballesteros off the sideline and paired him with David Gilford in the afternoon, which turned out to be a decision worth a 4-and-3 victory over Brad Faxon and Peter Jacobsen.

Maybe the best decision of the day was Lehman’s. He decided to go for it when he and Pavin were even with Faldo and Montgomerie on the 18th hole in the morning. He hit a pressurized five-iron high and hard from the rough, with 186 yards to the front of the green, dropping it about 40 feet short of the hole.

Pavin putted to four feet and Lehman rolled it in from there to close out the match.

Faldo hit a poor drive on the hole, and his wedge shot went in the back bunker.

“We should have won,” he said. “We played better golf, but they got the point, that’s the pity.”

The only pity Wadkins could muster was for Faxon and Jacobsen, who probably could have used a traveling companion in their match. Jacobsen lost count of Faxon’s strokes on the seventh hole and mistakenly picked up his ball, which took him out of a chance to halve the hole with Gilford and Ballesteros.

“I walked up on the eighth green and asked if they would like me to send a mathematician with them the rest of the way,” Wadkins said.

Ryder Cup Notes

The alternate-shot pairings for today are Curtis Strange and Jay Haas against Nick Faldo and Colin Montgomerie, Davis Love III and Jeff Maggert against Sam Torrance and Costantino Rocca, Loren Roberts and Peter Jacobsen against Ian Woosnam and Philip Walton, and Corey Pavin and Tom Lehman against Bernhard Langer and David Gilford.