TOP O' THE MORNING? MAYBE NOT.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH MEDIA

Someone, somewhere, on some far away island across a big ocean is going to need to convince us that, as football, baseball and even NASCAR hit high gear, we're supposed to get out of bed before the crack of dawn the next three mornings for some 25 hours of coverage for this thing called the Ryder Cup, where every couple of years Colin Montgomerie and his pub pals representing all of Europe whack away through torrential rain and high winds in something called fourball and alternate shot against the best of the U.S. hackers who act as if they've choked on tainted spinach.

Give us your best pitch, Dan Hicks.

``When you turn the corner to fall and obviously bring in football, that's a huge sport in America,'' Hicks said Thursday morning from Ireland, the site of this weekend's 36th Ryder Cup. ``But if anyone tuned into this stuff, it's really unscripted drama.

``It reminds me a lot of the Olympics that I've covered, where a lot of unknowns who become stars, you tell their story and all of the sudden they come through in one of the most pressure-packed events in sports, and they reach the pinnacle of their sport at least for this week, and it's a great story.

``There are soap operas every single day, and there's the microscope of the media covering it so no stone is left unturned. The bottom line is that momentum is an overused cliche in sports, but I've never covered any other sport where momentum is as big a factor as this. It's unbelievably fun to watch and cover when you've got a roller coaster like this going down the tracks every day.

``And plus, you know what, when you've got Tiger Woods involved, you've got a lot more viewers and if anyone gets a taste of it, you get hooked.''

Oh, Tiger is playing? You mean, the guy who's got some horrible record in this post-PGA Tour, non-major event and seems to be more preoccupied this week about some obscure magazine that's printing phony naked pictures of his wife?

Tommy Roy, NBC's producer for this event that begins on the network at 5 a.m. Saturday and 4 a.m. Sunday (after an 8 a.m. delayed broadcast today, or 5 a.m. if you have a dish, on USA Network), takes another crack at it.

``When you think about it, it's truly one of the great events on the sporting landscape, and you think about how guys like Michael Jordan and John Elway are quoted as saying the Ryder Cup is their favorite event, and you sit up and you say, why?'' Roy said.

And yes, again, we do say ``Why?''

``These guys are under excruciating pressure and one of two things happen: either they play super-human golf shots, or they crash and burn,'' Roy continued. ``No matter what happens, the emotions of it all are laid out right there in front of you and we're there to document the event and capture the emotional highs and lows, which makes for intriguing television.''

Maybe if NBC's coverage included some key guys from CBS. After all, Lanny Wadkins is a former Ryder Cup captain, and David Feherty, who played for the '91 European Ryder team, is an Irish native who would be the perfect course reporter.

``I think Tiger has the chance to electrify his team,'' Feherty chimed in, if for no other reason than he can. ``Forget the stories of troubled relationships on both teams. When the bell rings, these guys will love each other ... for three days, anyway.''

Somehow, we sense a better chance of generating Us-vs.-Them mentality during the Davis Cup when the Americans meet the Russians on some other remote cable channels this weekend.

All sounds like perfect TiVo viewing sometime. Somewhere. Somehow.

Geeter's motor running on this telecast

Chris ``Geeter'' McGee has every reason to be geeked for tonight's Oaks Christian- St. Bonaventure high school football game that goes out to about 56 million FSN cable homes across the country via Fox Sports Net West's coverage tonight at 7 p.m.

In his first season doing play-by-play for the FSN Southern California high school game of the week, the 35-year-old who played in Bill Redell's program back when the current Oaks Christian coach oversaw the Russell White-led Crespi High teams in the late 1980s has some personal context for this event.

But anyone who has heard McGee do the sand court announcing for the AVP beach volleyball events for the past nine seasons quickly realizes he's already Red Bull-level high energy to begin with. It could be a challenge for him to keep it all in check on what will be just his second high-school telecast.

``When I was out at practice the other day, I felt like I was ready to suit up, there's so much hype around this,'' said McGee, a member of Cal State Northridge's 1993 NCAA men's volleyball final team who has developed play-by-play experience doing FSN Pac-10 volleyball matches. ``You know when an AVP event is on NBC, it's live and everyone's amped, and that'll be how I feel about this one being a national game. It definitely fires me up.

``On the other hand, I know we want to build the drama and make those who are just channel surfing know that this is a big game. Most of these kids will never play in another game like this.''

So the trick for McGee will be to find a balance between his pump-it-up personality and FSN's philosophy not to make this high school game an overhyped TV show.

``I'm caught between trying to dial it down and keeping it energetic, and having a game last week (Mater Dei-Mission Viejo) helps,'' McGee said. ``But it's got to stay fun. Some people want me pumped, some are telling me to remember to take a few deep breaths. I just gotta be me and when I'm there with the crowd going crazy do what I feel comes natural.''

Naturally, the FSN telecast will turn it up a notch as well. The high-tech X-Mo slo-mo camera that's been a hit on Dodgers, Angels and AVP telecasts will be brought in for a test run.

CAPTION(S):

photo, 2 boxes

Photo:

European team member Jose Maria Olazabal dances during a Ryder Cup practice round.

Alastair Grant/Associated Press

Box:

(1) WHAT SMOKES

(2) WHAT CHOKES