Tempers Flare As Us Players Whip Up the Ryder Patriots

Because America had lost its last three matches with Europe, many expected relations between the Ryder Cup golf teams this year to be as stretched as they were in 1991 at Kiawah Island, South Carolina, where the home side incited feverish patriotism in the crowd shortly after the first Iraq war, and at Brookline in 1999, when Europe's captain, Mark James, accused the US team, wives and fans of unsporting behavior.

What was not expected was how early the rows would start here. Lee Westwood, a stalwart of six Ryder Cups, has been unhappy at the antics of the American players geeing up the crowd. His initial concerns were with Boo Weekley, the Floridian who claims to have wrestled an alligator, stood up to an orang-utan in a fist fight and 'broken the mold in golf'. On the first evening of matches it was perhaps inevitable that Weekley and Westwood would be drawn again to play each other in last night's fourballs, with the American emerging triumphant as the overall match was left delicately balanced overnight. The home fans taunted every mistake from the man from Workshop and celebrated their hero's brilliant play. One group dressed as soldiers chanted adaptations of the European ditty 'olé - o-gay', while Weekley angered his opponent with his exhortations to the crowd.

'You walk a fine line when you start using the crowd to your advantage at home,' Westwood said. 'I don't mind when they're raising their arms and whooping the crowd up. But when Boo holed it from off the back, I still had a putt for a half. There's no need to do it between the shots.'