Sky Sports - Ryder Cup

The genteel sport of golf has sometimes boiled over as national pride comes to a head at the Ryder Cup. Here we look back at flashpoints in the event's history.

"THUNDER" BOLT MEETS HIS MATCH

Not for nothing was American Tommy Bolt given the nickname "Thunder" and when he was drawn to play Scottish hard man Eric Brown in the singles at Lindrick in 1957 everybody knew there could be fireworks.

Brown reckoned Bolt deliberately played slowly after falling three down early on, so he sent his caddie off to the clubhouse. He returned with a chair!

After the ill-tempered match, which Brown won four and three, there was no shaking of hands and Bolt's only words were that he had not enjoyed it. "I don't suppose you did," replied his opponent.

"Because even you knew when the games were drawn that you never had an earthly hope of beating me."

Bolt was later quoted as saying about the British crowd: "Individually they are pretty nice folks. But get them together and they are about as miserable a bunch of people as you could ever have the misfortune to run into in a supposedly civilised world.

"They cheered when I missed a putt and sat on their hands when I hit a good shot."

"YOU CAN HAVE THE HOLE AND THE CUP"

The 1969 match at Royal Birkdale is remembered for Jack Nicklaus' sporting concession of a putt to Tony Jacklin to bring about a tie. But things were rather different the day before.

Bernard Gallacher and Brian Huggett played Dave Hill and Ken Still in the fourballs and on the very first green Huggett asked Hill to stop moving about, then Still to stand further away.

On the next green Still shouted to his caddie not to hold the flag for Gallacher, but things really got out of hand on the seventh. Hill missed a putt and holed out, but Gallacher told him he had putted out of turn.

Still picked up Gallacher's ball-marker and said: "You can have the hole and the goddamn cup." He and Huggett started shouting at each other walking up the next fairway and the crowd jeered the Americans' every move.

At the green Gallacher this time conceded Still's putt so that Hill, who had a chance to win the hole, could not see the line. That brought some more comments from Still, who delighted in the fact that his partner still made the putt, while Hill allegedly told Gallacher: "If you say one more word I'm going to wrap this one-iron around your head."

The atmosphere not surprisingly remained tense for the remainder of the match, which the Americans won on the 17th, and Hill refused to shake hands with the referee.

GOING BATS AT THE BELFRY

Seve Ballesteros had already helped Europe win at home and away when he came up against feisty debutant Paul Azinger in the lead-off singles at The Belfry in 1989.

Apparently the American had been warned to be on his guard for something out of the ordinary and on the second green Ballesteros asked to change his ball, claiming it was cut. Azinger did not think it was bad enough and nor did the referee when he was called in.

To the crowd - already very much on the Spaniard's side, of course - the dispute made them even more boisterous and things reached a crescendo on the last when Azinger drove into the lake.

Ballesteros, one down, was safely over, but looked across and was shaken when his opponent was given a drop in a place where he could reach the green. It actually found a bunker, but Ballesteros then went in the water and lost.

He could not help noticing that when Payne Stewart and Mark Calcavecchia also failed to make the carry with their drives shortly afterwards they were not able to do what Azinger had done.

"I didn't put too much attention to what he was doing," he said later. "He was trying to drop his ball and I was concentrating on my shot, but looking back I have the feeling that something was wrong." The referee, of course, had approved Azinger's drop, but Ballesteros was not going to forget what happened.

THE WAR ON THE SHORE

The 1991 match at Kiawah Island created enough electricity to light the world. The Gulf War was on at the time and when Corey Pavin and Steve Pate took to wearing camouflage caps what was meant to be purely sport had too much of a confrontational atmosphere for many people's liking.

A local disc jockey thought it a fun idea to call members of the European team in their rooms in the early hours - "wake up the enemy" - and the tension was such that the match badly needed to be controversy-free. But it was not.

Ballesteros and Jose Maria Olazabal took on Azinger and Chip Beck in the opening foursomes two years on from the acrimony between Ballesteros and Azinger.

On the seventh tee Ballesteros noticed Beck had changed the type of ball the Americans were using. It could have meant loss of hole under the rules, but nothing was done until captain Bernard Gallacher, alerted to the situation, spoke to officials at the turn.

"We made a mistake, but we certainly weren't cheating," said Azinger, to which Ballesteros replied: "It has nothing to do with cheating. Cheating and breaking the rules are two different things."

Coincidentally or not, the Americans, who were ahead at the time, lost the match, with Beck saying that Ballesteros' constant coughing had bothered him and Azinger labelling him "the king of gamesmanship". Ballesteros later stated: "The Americans were 11 nice guys and Paul Azinger."

When Pate, injured in a car crash before the event, played on the second afternoon and then was omitted from the singles, thus securing him a halved match, people wondered if it had been done tactically, then there was the suspicion that as the match boiled to its climax Hale Irwin's final drive was helped back into a good position by the crowd.

Irwin got the half the United States needed when Bernhard Langer missed from six feet. A dramatic end to a dramatic and explosive week.

BAD FORM AT BROOKLINE

From an American standpoint it was the greatest comeback in the history of the contest. From a European standpoint the event had just witnessed its most shameful scenes ever.

Winning had come to mean so much that in the heat of the moment Justin Leonard's 45-foot birdie putt on the 17th hole at Brookline in 1999 - after he had been four down earlier and the team had been four points behind overnight - sent the home camp into delirium.

Nobody could really have objected to the wild celebrations if the putt had been for victory. All it had done, though, was put the United States on the verge of a memorable victory.

Jose Maria Olazabal still had a putt to keep everything alive, but he had to wait to take it because of all the commotion - and then missed it.

In a sport which places so much importance on etiquette and behaviour the Americans involved were heavily condemned for their actions and one player in particular bore the brunt of it.

There is one famous photo which shows Tiger Woods airborne punching with delight, but it was Tom Lehman - this year's captain, of course - who was painted as the villain of the piece when Sam Torrance, Mark James' assistant and Europe's next captain, said on Sky Sports: "Tom Lehman calls himself a man of God. His behaviour today has been disgusting."

Even more unsavoury, though, had been the heckling of Colin Montgomerie, perhaps the worst golf has ever seen. His father could not stomach it after a while and came off the course, while James said his wife was spat at.