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Team USA captain Paul Azinger on his Tuesday practice pairings: "I'm not drawing names out of a hat."(Photo: Getty Images)

By T.J. Auclair, PGA.com Interactive Producer

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Preparation is officially under way for the 2008 Ryder Cup.

Tuesday was a perfect day in the Bluegrass State, as the United States and European teams played their first practice rounds at Valhalla Golf Club, getting their respective game plans in motion for Friday morning when the matches tee off.

An obvious buzz was in the air for the practice session and the anticipation was building. Several thousand fans donning the red, white and blue, huddled around tee boxes, lined fairways and swarmed around greens, offering up support for the home team.

The U.S. started its practice session on the back nine, playing in three foursomes.

Rookies Hunter Mahan and Anthony Kim were paired with veterans Justin Leonard and Phil Mickelson.

The Kentucky contingent of Kenny Perry and J.B. Holmes teed it up with Jim Furyk and Boo Weekley, while Stewart Cink and Chad Campbell knocked it around with Steve Stricker and Ben Curtis.

Is there anything we can read into those pairings?

"You can read what you want," said U.S. captain Paul Azinger. "You just don't throw them out willy-nilly. I'm not drawing names out of a hat."

Holmes is one of six rookies on the U.S. squad. Noted for his immense power game, Holmes had his length on full display when his foursome hit the par-4 13th hole, which played at roughly 330 yards on Tuesday.

With driver in hand, Holmes launched a missile off the tee. The ball soared over the small pond that protects the front of the island green and dropped like a feather onto the front of the dance floor, evoking a roar from the crowd typically reserved for holes in one -- and this was only a practice round.

"J.B. Holmes flew it right on the green, and the crowd went absolutely crazy," Azinger said. "That was just kind of a dose of what we could be in for, and I look forward to it."

While Azinger hasn't finalized any pairings just yet, he sounded as if there might be one he's leaning toward -- the local boys, Perry and Holmes.

"I've thought about what I'm going to do with those two guys; should I put them together, should I keep them apart," he said. "You know, I'd like to put them off first match out to be honest with you and get this crowd rocking."

The U.S. will need all the motivation it can get as it tries to capture the Ryder Cup for the first time since 1999 at the Country Club in Brookline.

The last two matches at Oakland Hills in Detroit and the K Club in Ireland have resulted in record-setting drubbings by the Europeans, both 18 1/2-9 1/2 margins.

Azinger's pairings on Tuesday may have been a tad telling. His European counterpart Nick Faldo, however, was a man of mystery.

With his team starting out on the front side at Valhalla, Faldo opted to send out four threesomes -- Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood and Soren Hansen; Padraig Harrington, Henrik Stenson and Graeme McDowell; Paul Casey, Robert Karlsson and Ian Poulter; and finally, Justin Rose, Oliver Wilson and Miguel Angel Jimenez.

Strategy? Perhaps. But would Faldo admit it?

"I thought we'd play in threes on Friday," he joked. "No, today was day one as a practice day. Just get out there and play, get themselves acclimatized. And I've always personally found four, when you're doing a lot of chipping or putting around the green, four is a crowd; there's always balls going everywhere. The guys are happy with that. We decided collectively that, yeah, let's go and have a look at the golf course, get the feel of things. As I said, they can chip and putt and test the sand, so they're more than happy doing that."

Faldo said he's got some idea as to what pairings he's like to go with, but the process isn't quite as easy as people might suspect.

"The first challenge is when I spoke to all the players last week, and I said, right, who are you going to be comfortable playing with, and then I marked all the initials down," Faldo said. "And it was like a Rubik's Cube when I looked at it. If he plays with him, that cancels out him. I just went like that, after that. I'm enjoying the challenge of all these different things."

Going strictly off recent play, it would seem as though the Europeans are the overwhelming favorites on paper.

Sergio Garcia won the Players Championship earlier this year and was a co-runner-up at the PGA Championship. Padraig Harrington has been the star of the game in the absence of Tiger Woods, winning both the Open Championship and the PGA Championship over the last two months. Robert Karlsson is in Louisville this week coming off a win in Germany on Sunday.

In fact, of the 12 players on the European side, Oliver Wilson is the only player without a win this season. Wilson, Faldo said, is holding his own just fine. Plus, with all the leadership on his team, particularly Garcia, Westwood and Harrington, Faldo feels there isn't a whole lot to worry about.

"Yeah, if I sleep in, I'm laughing," Faldo said. "Somebody else can take over quite happily."