Miguel de Cervantes, author of “Don Quixote,” knew the value of preparation. “Forewarned, forearmed; to be prepared is half the victory,” he famously said. Amelia Earhart thought it even more important — roughly 17% more. “Preparation is two-thirds of any venture,” she once remarked. “Chance favors the prepared mind,” thought Louis Pasteur.

If they’re right, and they often were, Tom Lehman and his American team will surely win this year’s Ryder Cup, which starts today at the K Club, just outside Dublin, Ireland.

For going on two years, Lehman has left precious few stones unturned in his quest to bring the little gold cup back to America. Not since 1999, when the U.S. side recovered from a 10–6 deficit after two days to win eight of the first nine singles matches on the Sunday and eventually win by a single point, has the chalice resided on this side of the Atlantic. However, if the captain’s painstaking homework has anything to do with the outcome, the U.S. side is in a good position to halt a decade of poor showings for which a lack of team spirit has often been cited as the main culprit.

As well as hosting various social gatherings designed to allow his team members to bond, the Minnesotan has remained in almost continuous contact with his players. He also hastily arranged a two-day visit to the venue for his charges four weeks ago, visited a veterans hospital, and sought the expertise of successful college basketball coaches John Wooden and Mike Kryzewski, who were able to impart considerable wisdom on the subject of teamwork and getting the most out of a group of superstar athletes, in particular athletes who for whatever reason have seriously underperformed in this event. Most telling perhaps is that Lehman has spoken on numerous occasions with Bernhard Langer, captain of the European team that crushed Hal Sutton’s team two years ago in Michigan. To cross enemy lines in such a fashion shows just how far Lehman was willing to go in order to gain what advantage he could.

Also working in the Americans’ favor will be the leadership role Tiger Woods is now ready and willing to take on. As captain, Lehman will make the decisions, but Woods recognizes the huge impact his good play would have on the rest of his team. His 7–11–2 record has led to various claims that the world no. 1 has never really cared for the Ryder Cup and maybe hasn’t given his best, but to suggest this fierce competitor wouldn’t try on so important an occasion as the Ryder Cup is preposterous. Clearly, however, something has prevented him from dominating as he has elsewhere.

One theory goes that despite his being the youngest member in three of the four U.S.sides of which, there has always been an expectation he would emerge as leader — an expectation that proved too much even for him. A far more plausible suggestion is that he simply never found a partner with whom he felt comfortable, or rather one who felt comfortable with him. In partnership with 10 different players, Woods has earned just five and a half points from sixteen foursome and four-ball matches since his debut in 1997.

The feeling this year is that Woods, still the third youngest member of the team (Zach Johnson and Vaughn Taylor were born two and three months after Woods, respectively) is sufficiently experienced to act as the inspirational talisman of a side that has lacked such a figure in recent years, and no amount of cheap and distasteful gossip about his wife appearing in disreputable Irish magazines and newspapers is likely to prevent that. And by inviting the rookies — Johnson, Taylor, Brett Wetterich, and JJ Henry — out to dinner at the WGC Bridgestone event in August he, like his captain, demonstrated how seriously he is taking his responsibilities.

More important though is that Woods now has a wingman he can trust. At the Presidents Cup last year, Woods joined forces with Jim Furyk and went unbeaten in three matches, winning two and half points. Their combination of styles suited the format superbly well and each spoke of how confident he felt. As a result, the pair will tee off first on Friday morning against one of Europe’s most experienced pairings, Padraig Harrington and Colin Montgomerie, and will no doubt see a good deal more action over the first two days of competition.

American fans will be looking for two, if not three, points from a pairing no European duo will relish facing. Equally potent will be the Phil Mickelson/Chris DiMarco twosome that, like Woods and Furyk, fared extremely well at the Presidents Cup.

All this might point to a U.S. victory, but if indeed they do win, they will have to overcome what is possibly Europe’s strongest ever side from top to bottom. In the past, European teams were always regarded as underdogs but were served well by a roster top heavy with major champions — Seve Ballesteros, Sandy Lyle, Nick Faldo, Bernhard Langer, current captain Ian Woosnam, and Jose-Maria Olazabal, who were joined by half a dozen lesser-known players. Spurred on by Ballesteros’s passionate encouragement and ringing endorsement, those lesser lights invariably rose to the occasion.

Now, Europe is statistically the better side. Their average world ranking — a little over 22 — is better than that of the Americans and the team’s two rookies, Sweden’s Henrik Stenson and Robert Karlsson, are proven winners and vastly more experienced than the U.S.’s quartet of first-timers.

The Euros have also shown slightly superior form in recent weeks with Stenson beating Harrington, and world no. 6, Retief Goosen, in a playoff to win the BMW International Open at the start of the month. Karlsson also shot 25 under par at the Deutsche Bank Players Championship of Europe in July to claim his seventh European Tour win, and Paul Casey made light work of Shaun Micheel in the final of the HSBC World Matchplay Championship at Wentworth in England last weekend.

Overcoming such a team on foreign soil will be a formidable task for the U.S., but they may have the trump card in Lehman, whose captaincy, up to now at least, has overshadowed that of Ian Woodsman, a far less intense individual who has appeared a little awed by the task at times and who many joke is in it just for the free beer.

Unlike Ben Hogan and Ray Floyd before him, Lehman knew better than to introduce his team as “the best 12 players in the world” at the opening ceremony yesterday. Even this most patriotic of Americans would not include half of his team among the game’s top dozen golfers. But if Tiger can win the points he’s most certainly due and the U.S. team can benefit from its captain’s shrewd management another European rooftop party might just be avoided.