“Four minutes! Four minutes!” Amy Rusiecki’s call rings out over the hum of voices gathered under the tent, where several hundred brave and perhaps slightly foolhardy souls are milling around over cups of coffee and banana halves, some stretching or pogoing their legs, others gone quiet and still in silent meditation. It is, at Rusiecki’s mark, 3:56 in the morning. …

Mark Bradley lifted his 11-year-old son Keegan from atop his shoulders and sent him scurrying on his knees through the throng surrounding the 18th green at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass., on a late summer’s day in August of 1999. The final singles matches of the Ryder Cup, the biannual team match play competition between the top golfers from …