Europe floored by US streetfighters

Some of Nick Faldo's team were unhappy enough with some undignified episodes both inside and outside the ropes to ensure another great Ryder Cup tradition was also given a new lease of life here in Kentucky. That is, good, old-fashioned transatlantic needle.

And at the centre of it all was Paul Azinger, the US captain who masterminded the 16½ to 11½ point triumph - the biggest by an American side since Jack Nicklaus and Co's magnificent Walton Heath team of 1981 - and who, whether you believe Faldo was a dismal captain or just unfortunate to have been the victim of an inspired "Boo-S-of-A", out-duelled his old sparring partner.

Lee Westwood reckoned Azinger pumped up the crowds into the sort of frenzy which saw him being abused all week. Yet did his assistants and his players take on Azinger's streetfighting philosophy too?

Ian Poulter, Europe's man-ofthematch, claimed one of them shoulder charged him on Saturday. From TV pictures, it appears he was talking about Anthony Kim.

Then there was an altercation when Azinger's vice-captain Ray Floyd approached Faldo's right-hand man Jose Maria Olazabal unnecessarily on the 12th fairway during another match yesterday.

"Raymond didn't have the whole picture of what had happened and thought one of our guys was practising on the green when he wasn't," said the Spaniard. "I just told him what I thought."

Even though Westwood had been unhappy about some of Boo Weekley's cheerleading antics during their fourballs match on Friday (for which the American later apologised), he didn't blame the US players for abusive galleries. "I think it's down to the captain," he said.

Not that Westwood was trying to make excuses. Europe, he accepted, had been beaten fair and square "by a great American performance" headed by their three good ol' boys, Weekley and Kentucky pair JB Holmes and Kenny Perry, and one very good young boy, Kim.

With his exuberance, glorious shotmaking, ability to energise Phil Mickelson and his lead-off trouncing of Sergio Garcia 5 and 4, a true international sports star was born here.

Tiger wasn't around but who needed him?

Woods has never been able to plug into his team like this 23-year-old, who reduced Europe's totem Garcia to such flustered impotence that the Spaniard plonked his approach twice into the lake guarding the seventh green.

Their match symbolised the changing of the guard. American golf has been waiting for Garcia to be out-peacocked for years. "Good, good?" Garcia asked, suggesting they both conceded their two three-foot birdie putts at the first.

"Let's putt them," growled Kim in response. It was just business, the American shrugged later but he sounded like a man who, as evidenced by Poulter's comments, has the ability to get under the skin of his European opponents for years to come.

Faldo couldn't be blamed for putting out Garcia first but what was questionable, after his controversial dropping of the Spaniard and Westwood for Saturday morning's singles, was his running order in the singles.

He put his two best players of the week, Graeme McDowell and Ian Poulter at 9 and 10, his most experienced soldier Westwood at 11 and three-time Major winner Padraig Harrington last - and all their games were rendered redundant because the Cup was already lost by the time they came down the stretch.

But the wave of support Faldo received from all his team at the losers' news conference was quite touching.

Like that scene from Spartacus, his team's voices piped up to back him. "Can I jump in?" they asked, man after man.

"We hold the golf clubs and we hit the shots, not the captain," said Westwood, explaining how he and Harrington had asked to bat at 11 and 12. "It's not his fault," chipped in Garcia.

All very admirable but, from outside the team room at least, the Faldo captaincy has never seemed a happy affair.

Yet it's hard to see Faldo's failure as being anything but a boon for the event itself. The golf was probably more amazing than ever, the Americans were back and being insufferable and there will be a grand new cast list for the 2010 edition at Celtic Manor.

And, of course, we must be treated to Boo Weekley. Everything was red, white and Boo last night.

Weekley had noted: "I feel like a dog that somebody stuck a needle to and it juiced me up like I've been running around a greyhound track chasin' one of them bunnies."

So what did that bunny taste when he finally caught up with it here? "Chicken," he said with a twinkle in his eye. See you in Wales, Boo.