Europe turns on the water works but U.S. response is dried and true in Ryder Cup

They had an equipment malfunction here Friday, and it wasn’t even a Super Bowl halftime. Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake weren’t anywhere around.

This was the Ryder Cup. Things don’t unbutton or fly open in golf.

But it turns out they leak.

Friday was the opening day of the Ryder Cup, matching the 12 best golfers from the United States against the 12 best from Europe. They were to play four matches of four-ball, the team with the best ball winning the hole. After that, there would be four matches of foursomes, teams alternating shots.

But suddenly, the proceedings just didn’t hold water.

The rains came and play was suspended, for seven hours, in a long and frustrating opening day. By day’s end, the U.S. team had a precarious 2-1-1 lead over Europe after a partial day of four-ball play, with no matches completed.

When darkness stopped play, the U.S. team of Stewart Cink and Matt Kuchar had rallied to go two up on the Northern Ireland pair of Graeme McDowell and Rory McIlroy; Steve Stricker and Tiger Woods had it back to all-square with Europe’s Ian Poulter and Ross Fisher; American rookies Bubba Watson and Jeff Overton held on for a one-up lead over Luke Donald and Padraig Harrington; and Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson had cut the three-up lead of Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer to one up.

The delay also prompted a schedule change to try to finish the competition Sunday.

Now, Saturday’s matches are to begin with the completion of Friday’s suspended four four-ball matches, followed by six foursome (alternate-shot) matches, and, if possible, another session of two more foursome and four more four-ball matches.

European Captain Colin Montgomerie theorized the compressed schedule would help his team because he had better alternate-shot players than U.S. Captain Corey Pavin.

But Pavin said the new schedule was fine with him. “They’re all going out both days now,” he said. “I like that.”

The weather forecast was better for Saturday, not so good for Sunday. If the event is pushed into Monday, it will have a mandatory ending of 6:43 p.m. local time. Whatever the score is of completed matches at that point will be the final score.

The rain Friday was no surprise. This is Wales in October, and all those lush and rolling green hills surrounding the Celtic Manor Resort’s Twenty Ten course didn’t get that way from a paint job. Rain suits were donned and players headed out to battle.

But at 9:44 a.m., about two hours after matches had started, Twenty Ten had turned into Swampy Valley and play was called. The course was in need of a flotation device, and Noah and his Ark were nowhere to be found.

Worse, Pavin was finding out, as his U.S. team returned to dry land in the clubhouse, that there were some holes in his rain-gear plan. Literally.

Several of the U.S. players said they were all wet, and they weren’t talking about their golf swings. Indeed, the company from which Pavin and the PGA acquired the team’s rain gear should, henceforth, be known as Sieve Industries. Presumably, they’ve also done work for hockey goalies.

The clothing selected to repel the rain wasn’t repelling. Often, an issue for golfers in the rain is keeping their hands dry. This time, it was their navels.

Adding to the insult was the European team reaction, once the story of the U.S. rain suits leaked.

“Ours are working fine,” McIlroy said.

The PGA of America, problem-solving group that it is, took immediate action.

Did they go to their backup suits? Did they helicopter in the best they could locate in London, perhaps a 20-minute flight away? Did they have a descendant of Betsy Ross around to sew?

Nope. They sauntered on over to the public merchandise tent and bought new rain suits off the shelves.

Since little else was going on most of the day, the issue became a hot topic. That happens when you have 45,000 paying spectators wandering around in muck and several hundred sportswriters holed up in a media center, with beer supplies dwindling.

Paul Azinger, winning U.S. captain in 2008, here as a TV commentator, fueled the fire when he said that, getting correct rain suits, “is the first thing you take care of.”

To his credit, Pavin didn’t burst a seam when asked about this, even though a few cynics thought his answer was all wet.

“We were disappointed with the performance” of the rain suits, he said, “and, you know, we just fixed it.”

Fix it, they did.

The U.S. team that left the course at 9:45 a.m. was a soggy and unhappy lot. They also trailed the Europeans, 3-1, after 12 holes. More than seven hours later, that same U.S. team, dried out, warm and newly protected from the elements, turned that deficit into a 2-1-1 advantage when darkness stopped play for the day.

The U.S. officials had done it. All hail the PGA. Sure, there had been a hole in their plan. Well, several.

But in the end, Yankee ingenuity won out. They did the American thing: In a pinch, they went shopping.

bill.dwyre@latimes.com