BLOOMFIELD HILLS, United States (AFP) - Beware - Vicious Dog. US Ryder Cup captain Hal Sutton would do well to pin up such a sign in the American team room.
Bernhard Langer and the European team are playing the underdog tag brilliantly, creating the impression that the team is more like a long-haired, licking, roll-over-and-scratch-me-mutt than the jugular-tearing hound it really is.
Not an interview goes by where a European player does not trot out the "underdog" theme.
"Yeah, I think we are the underdogs," said Ireland's Padraig Harrington. "The US players are ahead of us in the world rankings. They have Major winners, which is a significant factor."
Colin Montgomerie, who led Europe to victory at the Belfry two years ago, echos the sentiment.
"If you add up all those world rankings we are heavily, heavily, underdogs again. We haven't won a US Open or a US PGA for a very long time, therefore I think we start as slight underdogs, but that's always the case," said the Scot, who made the team this time as a wildcard pick.
But behind the 'play down the hopes' theme, it is clear that the European team is far from being the underdogs if you look at their Ryder Cup record.
Each side has seven players who have Cup experience and on the American side only two have winning records - Phil Mickelson who has a 59 percent winning record and David Toms who has a 70 percent success rate.
Europe can match that. Spanish wonderkid Sergio Garcia has a 65 percent record and Montgomerie a 66 percent score.
Of the other five players with Ryder Cup experience on each side, it is Europe that comes out on top on the winning percentage chart.
Miguel Angel Jiminez (40 percent), Harrington (50), Darren Clarke (40), Paul McGinley (33) and Lee Westwood (45) lead the US side of Stewart Cink (33), Jim Furyk (36), Jay Haas (44), Davis Love (46) and Tiger Woods (40).
Europe play up the fact that the US team boasts 12 Majors but when you consider the fact that eight are owned by Woods it does not amount to much.
Woods, recently dethroned by Vijay Singh for the world number one spot, has a miserable Ryder Cup record, 5-8 with two halved.
As for the five rookies being fielded by each side, only on Sunday evening will it be clear if they have the temperament for Ryder Cup warfare.
But Harrington let slip a warning that Sutton would do well to listen to - Europe has never put out a stronger team.
"We have a more balanced team in Europe for the first time," explained the Dubliner.
"I think Europe in past years have tried to play six or eight players, or five players against 12 US players. This time around we are going to play 12 against 12, which is a new experience for Europe."
Paul Casey, David Howell, Ian Poulter, Luke Donald and Thomas Levet may not all be household names but they are proven winners.
And Casey, Poulter, Howell and Donald are considered the future of European golf.
Sutton and the US had better watch they don't get bitten by the self-proclaimed underdog.