Fears for Yanks at The Belfry

Mrs Hickey's letter had been sitting there on the front seat of my car for the better part of the past 10 days, and had made at least half a dozen round-trips from my house to Brookline. I fully recognise the breach of manners involved here, for which I can offer but two admittedly miserable excuses.

The first is that between the time I dropped by the office and picked up my mail upon my return from Las Vegas and the end of the Ryder Cup, I had been awfully busy.

The second is that - and I think here I can speak for most people in this business - I am usually in no rush to reply to hand-written letters sent to me in care of the newspaper. More often than not these letters begin with the salutation "You Moron," and proceed from there.

That having been said, I must confess that when I opened the letter on Tuesday morning, it brought tears to my eyes:

September 7, 1999, Dear Mr Kimball,

Last spring you interviewed my husband Frank Hickey via telephone, regarding his remembrances of the first Ryder Cup matches held in 1927 at Worcester Country Club.

Frank passed away on June 17th. He was looking forward to watching the 1999 matches on television.

In 1927 he was 16 years old and then the number one caddie at W.C.C. As such he was asked to caddie for the captain of the British team, Ted Ray. He said that the 1927 matches were held to cement the friendly relations between the United States and Britain.

I know that if he were here he would be concerned about the continuation of that spirit of friendship during the current matches. He would also be concerned about such things as greed and politics getting in the way.

If you plan to use any materials from that interview, I would appreciate it if you would send me a copy of same.

Thank you. Sincerely, Frances M. Hickey.

I must also regretfully admit that Frank Hickey's passing had somehow escaped my attention. When I began researching the details of the first Ryder Cup for a story for the official programme for this year's matches, he, Gene Sarazen, and another caddie named Fred Hill were the surviving participants of the 1927 matches. Two of the three have died since I interviewed them.

I trust that Frank's end came peacefully, and I suppose in retrospect it is something of a blessing that he didn't live to see what happened in Brookline last weekend. My suspicion is that he would have been overwhelmed by the same sense of sadness that visited me when I read his widow's letter two days ago.

I am sure Frank Hickey, had he lived a few more months, would agree with my assessment: had what happened in 1999 occurred in 1927, Walter Hagen, the US captain, would have marched out, seized Tom Lehman by the ear, and dragged him right off the green. Then he would have turned around and ordered Justin Leonard to concede Jose Maria Olazabal's putt.

And had the crowd at Worcester comported itself this way at the first Ryder Cup, there never would have been a second.

Even more disturbing is the smug reaction of the American press to this turn of events. A story jumping off the front page of my own newspaper, the Boston Herald, on Tuesday said: "The mental collapse of the European team was one of the most astounding in golf history, and should be the cause of psychoanalysis rather than whining. Maybe next time the Europeans will see shrinks instead of caddies.

"Blaming the American victory on unruly fans and players is like saying we won the Revolutionary War because the Hessians couldn't get decent knockwurst." Or golf writer Joe Gordon, writing in yesterday's Herald: " This isn't meant to condone Sunday's celebration, just to put it in perspective. And to let Olazabal know where he can stick the sanctimonious lecture he and some of his team-mates gave to the American team.

"The reaction in Europe has been predictable. It's the tired old `Ugly American' syndrome again. The European team trolled some fresh bait and Fleet Street went for it hook, line, and sinker."

Even as he apologised - again - for Sunday's unseemly demonstrations, US captain Ben Crenshaw attempted to deflect the blame by saying: "To suggest Europeans are not vocal is wrong. They are."

Crenshaw is correct in noting that the seeds for this were sown long ago. I can recall standing beside the 18th green at Muirfield during the 1987 Open Championship. Nick Faldo, who had made 17 pars on the trot, was on the green and looking at another. American Paul Azinger, a stroke behind, needed a birdie on the last to force a play-off, and when Azinger's approach shot found a greenside bunker, the audience positively exploded in delighted applause.

But as partisan as crowds at The Belfry and Valderamma might have been, to the best of my knowledge they never spit on anybody. Nor did they once bellow out, in the middle of a player's backswing, "Miss it, you fat truck!", or whatever it was they were shouting at Monty.

The way we see it, the future of the Ryder Cup is now imperiled on at least two fronts. The first threat comes from Mark James' suggestion that "a lot of players will not be bothered competing in America again".

Should, for instance, Montgomerie - and who could blame him? - elect to pass on the 2003 matches at Oakland Hills, what logical argument could be used to dissuade the likes of Tiger Woods and David Duval from skipping the return visit to the K Club two years later?

But the events of this weekend pose an even more immediate threat, and that is that, as unruly as our spectators can be, when it comes to sporting riots they are, compared to the Brits, rank amateurs.

Thus far the skinheaded lot who trashed Wembley Arena in the aftermath of 1980's Marvin Hagler-Alan Minter fight and who laid siege to Lansdowne Road a few years ago, have evinced no interest in golf, but, having been presented with the opportunity for a new stage, they are now apt to turn up at The Belfry in record numbers.

More ominous still is the overwhelming possibility that the pugnacious atmosphere surrounding the event will spill out well beyond the bounds of the Cup venue. Even if the respective captains and PGAs manage to keep a lid on things at the golf course, you can anticipate that some American spectator will go out for a stroll on the streets of Birmingham clad in a stars-and-stripes shirt two Septembers hence, and wind up getting the spit beaten out of him. And when he wakes up in the hospital, he won't even know why.