Mark Daniell

We've all been there: the first tee, the dimpled white orb sitting serenely on its throne, the shimmering green fairway, sirenlike in the distance. We've all felt the weight of the club in our one-gloved grip, the flex of the shaft; envisaged the crack and ping of contact. The 37th Ryder Cup starts today and that exact same feeling of expectation will be experienced by each of the European elite as they take on the much-scorned might of American golf. Of course, I had to stop the personalised introduction at a rather crucial place for it to have any validity, as after that point the comparison quickly wanes.

At eight seconds past eight minutes past eight in the evening, central Chinese time, on the eighth of August, two thousand and eight, the Beijing Olympic Games get underway. That’s 8:08:08 p.m. on 08/08/08 – so, by my count, only six eights. Two short of the lucky Chinese number. I can think of only one way this shortfall can be remedied: the Olympic committee gets Nena to sing an appropriately rewritten ‘88 Red Balloons’ during the opening ceremony. I’ve looked into it, and to my great disappointment they’ve gone with Celine Dion. Ten and a half thousand athletes, competing in three hundred and two events, will descend upon the Chinese capital, each with dreams of gold and glory. Three hundred and thirteen of these will be from Great Britain.

If ever there was a sporting foregone conclusion it’s Wimbledon. Federer always wins Wimbledon. It’s what he does. He hasn’t lost on grass in 59 games so there’s no point in watching it, right? But this year the knives are out for the world number one. He was humbled in the final in Paris a fortnight ago, in a match many thought he would win. How come? Well the fact is Rafael Nadal has never played better, been stronger or had such confidence. He’s just won his first ever grass court tournament (at Queen’s) and he’s clearly got the psychological edge on Federer. Many people are saying this will be Nadal's year. Many people are also saying: what on earth is he wearing?

Ok, so Euro 2008 has kicked off (if my calculations are correct, we should be most of the way through France vs Romania right now). And the BBC still bellows "Who will you support?" Answer: no-one. We didn’t qualify, remember? Cinderella has never had so much empathy. I wrote on Friday night how we Brits could mine some enjoyment out of the tournament. But I just thought I'd pick up on another - albeit expensive - way of injecting some genuine emotional attachment into proceedings, and that’s to stake cash on them. These days there are some highly elaborate and intricate ways of losing money that you should know about. First up, you can avoid being a butterfly and back your club's overseas players to outscore their Premiership rivals.

In the absence of any Home Nations presence in the upcoming Euro 2008 football championships, there's been plenty of talk about which teams we Brits should support. I suspect many will have been scouring family trees or revamping tired old prejudices in a desperate attempt to give a hoot about what will happen. Personally, I find it difficult to forget past footballing harm inflicted on England, and could never bring myself to support the perpetrators. As such, this condition rules out Portugal, Germany, France, Romania and, well, if you go back far enough, pretty much anyone (except maybe Spain). Which doesn't leave a whole load of choice. Perhaps, then, there's a different way to go about things, whilst remaining steadfastly British: namely, supporting the underdogs.