Mother Nature has smiled on Chicago this week, with day-time temperatures from the mid-60s to the mid-70s. For the three rounds of the Ryder Cup, the forecast calls for mostly sunny and temperatures right around 70 degrees.

What a difference a year makes.

I remember being at the Trump Tower a year ago, when the Ryder Cup captains teed off from the 16th floor and tried to land the ball onto a barge on the Chicago River 220 yards away. It was chilly, rainy and there was a wind advisory a day or two later.

"We were here last year, and thank goodness we didn't play that week," said Allen Wronowski, the president of the PGA of America. "We had eight inches of rain, and monsoon wind and freezing weather."

One never knows what the weather will be like here. But, with a worldwide audience preparing to turn their attention to Chicago and the Ryder Cup, we can all be thankful that the weather won't be a problem.