What a difference a few days makes eh? Last Sunday, Tiger Woods stood on the 18th green at East Lake, his arms elevated to the heavens in jubilation and a grinning beam that could’ve spanned the Atlantic.

The rejuvenated 14-time major winner was going to travel to Paris with a spring in his step after his first tour triumph in five years and Europe had been warned that the Tiger was set to bare his teeth in the Ryder Cup again.

Yesterday, he wore the face of a man who had just stubbed his toe on the clubhouse steps as his return to this team environment ended in a fourballs defeat and a stint on the sidelines as he was benched for the afternoon session.

Given all the emotion of that victory at the Tour Championship in Atlanta, a rigorous playing schedule coming into the Ryder Cup and the general hoopla and hullabaloo surrounding his every golfing cough, wheeze and snort, perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised that the 42-year-old’s re-emergence on this particular stage was something of an anti-climax.

Woods was certainly not the same golfer who was, by and large, so imperious the previous weekend. There were even rumours that he was off to get intensive treatment on that bothersome back of his.

Speculation birls about at the Ryder Cup like cars going round the Arc de Triomphe. Woods’ back was fine, it seems, and any thoughts that he would miss today’s action were swiftly neutralised when he was listed for service in this morning’s session.

In tandem with Patrick Reed yesterday, Woods and his American partner went down to a 3&1 defeat at the hands of the terrific European double act of Tommy Fleetwood and Francesco Molinari. “My game is fine,” Woods said in the aftermath of that morning defeat. “My cut really wasn’t cutting off the tee today. I was hammering it. The ball was going far. It was going straight, but it was not cutting. I accept that. That’s really no big deal. My putting feels solid. I’ll be ready come tomorrow whenever captain [Jim Furyk] puts me out.’’

For the first time in his eight Ryder Cup appearances, Woods would sit out an opening day session after he was benched for the foursomes.

Indeed, he had only ever missed one session in his entire career and that was in the morning matches at Medinah in 2012 when, as he revealed recently, his dicey dorsal began to display the first hints of trouble and strife.

This latest reversal in a biennial bout that Woods has never prospered in took his all-time record in the event to won 13, lost 18 and halved three.

It looked like the Woods and Reed alliance would get off to a winning start as they forged a two-hole lead through 10 holes. Woods birdied the ninth and Reed chipped in on the 10th and it was all going swimmingly.

It would all peter out on the run in, though, as the Europeans surged back and the US duo stumbled home.

“We were in control of the match being two-up, but we just didn’t make any birdies coming in,” Woods said in a fairly simple summing up of affairs.

“You have to make birdies in fourballs. You have to do it. We did it early. I think I made about four birdies there on that front nine. Pat had a couple. We were putting it on them, and then on the back nine, it flipped. They put it on us, and we couldn’t answer.’’

And what about those whisperings about Tiger’s back? “I’ve not heard he has a back problem, he’s all good and he was out practising at night” declared Furyk, the USA captain.

“Anytime Tiger doesn’t play there’s always so much attention on him and sometimes people get hypersensitive about his back.”