Gallacher puts the case for civilised values in Ryder Cup

'As a player, I would not have responded well to Seve's interference on the golf course at Valderrama, but he got the job done'

My appointment with Bernard Gallacher, originally to have taken place at Wentworth – where he is kind of emeritus professional, even cast in bronze beside the first tee – has been moved, improbably, to the venerable London department store, Selfridge's. This is not because Gallacher can only fit me in between buying some new boxer shorts and an electric tin-opener, but because he has lent his name and expertise to a snazzy new golf section, with a smart teaching facility.

The plug for Selfridge's over, we can now get down to the business of the forthcoming Ryder Cup, about which Gallacher is well-equipped to comment, having played between 1969 and 1983, and been captain three times, in 1991, 1993 and 1995.

We are led to a side room, near ladies' swimwear. Gallacher wears a more or less constant air of faint bemusement, but behind it there is charm and humour, not to mention toughness, which he needed in the 1977 Ryder Cup at Lytham to overcome Jack Nicklaus in the singles. "I beat him easily on the last green," he says, with a chuckle.

We'll come back to Ryder Cups past, but let's first discuss the match about to unfold, and its unique peculiarity, that there are players whose form has so deserted them since they were selected for the team that they can scarcely claim still to rank among the golfing élite.

"Yes, it's unfortunate, but at least it affects both teams. Lee Westwood is hardly in the top 100 [he's 141st, down from 17th a year ago], but then on the American side, Hal Sutton is not playing well either. While [Jose-Maria] Olazabal, who wasn't playing well enough to get into the 2001 team, has been in great form this year. There were always going to be those anomalies." Did he approve of the decision, in the wake of the 11 September atrocities, to postpone?

"Well, we had to go along with the Americans. The European side wanted to play the match, but couldn't get the Americans to travel, which was understandable. I'm just glad that we're having it, that it wasn't cancelled altogether, because a home match supports our whole tour, from the financial point of view, until the next home match."

Had the Ryder Cup gone ahead last September, any lingering antagonism following the shabby scenes at Brookline in 1999, would surely have been overwhelmed by sympathy towards the Americans. One hopes that will still be the case. Gallacher's views on this are worth seeking, especially as his first experience of captaincy was at Kiawah Island in 1991, the so-called "War on the Shore".

"You know," he says, "Americans have always had this misconception that we're very partisan. They have now convinced themselves that when they come over here they're booed when they hole a putt, and clapped when they miss a putt. Well, in all the Ryder Cups I've ever attended, back to '69, I've never seen that. The British public love Americans. When David Duval put his second shot on the 18th green at Lytham last year you could almost hear the cheer in America.

"But they have this misconception, and in '91 they responded to it. They made it very hostile for us, and as you know, the local radio station kept trying to get through to our players' rooms in the middle of the night. They had this thing they thought was funny, called 'Wake the Enemy'. Apparently the maids servicing the rooms were induced to give our phone numbers to this local DJ, who woke me up, and I know he woke up Paul Broadhurst, in the middle of his show.

"Then there was the business with their guys putting on the battle fatigues, in the aftermath of the Gulf War, which so hyped up the spectators that we thought they were going to start shouting at the top of our backswings. Paul Azinger was the chief cheerleader. And Dave Stockton, the captain, was very focused on winning.

"After all, they hadn't won it since 1983. And Dave had some tough players on his side, like Azinger, [Lanny] Wadkins, [Raymond] Floyd, [Corey] Pavin, [Mark] Calcavecchia, guys who would do anything within the rules to win. And don't forget that they were the underdogs, in their own country. We had [Ian] Woosnam, the world No 1, [Nick] Faldo, the world No 2, Seve [Ballesteros] was still playing well, Olazabal, [Bernhard] Langer..."

Unfortunately, the bad feeling did not recede as that Ryder Cup wore on. If anything, it escalated, particularly when Stockton withdrew Steve Pate from the singles following a car crash on the eve of the match. There was some suggestion, I venture, that Pate was not injured, just off form.

"No, he was definitely bruised," Gallacher says. "But there was a suspicion – a suspicion, I'm saying no more than that – that when they knew he was going to be playing Seve in the singles, that's when they pulled him out.

"It certainly made things very difficult for me. David Gilford had played twice, and had had two heavy defeats, so I put him in the envelope [for withdrawal], but I would have prepared him for it. It came as a great shock to him, five minutes before, to realise that Stockton had pulled out a player. I wasn't prepared for it either. I was sitting having breakfast with Ian MacLaurin from Tesco at the time. Poor David was in tears.

"Now when Sam [Torrance] fell out in '93 with a poisoned toe, I had prepared [the US captain, Tom] Watson. I said, 'I'm not sure but there's a chance we won't be playing him in the singles, so get yourself ready to pull someone out.' Tom was then able to say to his team, 'who wants to stand down?' And Wadkins said: 'I was the last man in, I was the wild card, it's right that I should.' That was handled pretty well."

Watson had been worried, before the 1993 match at The Belfry, that the British crowd might respond to the 1991 hostilities. "And I know Sam was worried about the same thing after Boston [in 1999], but I have never had the sense that anything like that was about to happen at The Belfry." Gallacher was at the 1999 Ryder Cup, working for American television.

What did he make of the partying on the 17th green, before Olazabal had putted? "I didn't think it was premeditated. They ran on the green because they thought they'd won the Ryder Cup, they forgot [Justin] Leonard wasn't one-up, that he was all-square. But [the US captain] Ben Crenshaw should have had the presence of mind to calm them down. He let himself down. We all had such a high opinion of Crenshaw coming into that Ryder Cup, yet his press conferences, when his team was losing, there was almost a hatred there. I honestly don't think I ever felt the Ryder Cup was that serious. To Crenshaw, and to Stockton, it seemed like life and death."

As it did, let's be balanced here, to Ballesteros in 1997. "Yes, Seve at Valderrama was like a man possessed. I, as a player, would not have responded well to Seve's interference on the golf course, and some of the players didn't, but he got the job done. Seve would probably say that he did what had to be done, because we won, although I think we might have won by more if Seve hadn't been that way."

A big chuckle. "Don't tell him I said that. Of course, he [Seve] had been so inspirational as a player. He lifted them all, although some players couldn't play with him. When Tony put Jose Rivero with Seve, we could see that Rivero had too much respect for him, was looking up at him too much. Tiger Woods has the same effect. That will be one of Curtis Strange's big decisions this time, who to play with Tiger? Mark O'Meara has played with him in the past, because he's a close friend. But this time? The choice is limited."

Despite such subtleties of captaincy, does Gallacher think, as I know Faldo does, that the significance of the captain has been greatly inflated? "Oh yeah, totally. The team largely picks itself. It was pretty obvious this time that [Sergio] Garcia and [Jesper] Parnevik were going to be the wild cards. Mostly the job of the captain is to keep the door open for the players. Even great players get anxious about the Ryder Cup, so you want to be a listening, feeling captain. You need to say 'if there's someone you don't want to play with, let me know. Don't say afterwards, when you've lost the match, that you didn't really want to play with him.' But usually the pairings come together pretty naturally, although you have to be a little bit cautious, because some you think are going to go well, don't.

"A classic example is Faldo and Woosnam in '91. They had played at Muirfield Village [in 1987] and gelled brilliantly. I thought they looked like a natural combination. But they never really got on, I think because by '91 they were competing against each other to be world No 1. At Muirfield Village Nick was the lead guy and Woosnam was happy to go along with that, but by '91, as it turned out, it was better to split them up. I was slow to see that the combination had passed its sell-by date.

"Sometimes it's best to have a lead player and another who knows he's being led, like when Faldo played with Colin Montgomerie, or Woosnam with Paul Broadhurst. They played great together." Gallacher grins. "Maybe there's a bit more than I thought to this captaincy business."

And so to the next captain of the European Ryder Cup team. Faldo, for all that he thinks the job is overrated, would doubtless enjoy the honour. His old nemesis, Mark James, captain in 1999, thinks that Woosnam and Langer, and very possibly Noddy and Big Ears, are due the job before Faldo.

"I think," says Gallacher, slowly, "that if Faldo wants to be captain we should give him the chance. I think it would be a bad stain on our side if he is never captain. But it would be better to have him as captain in America. The American public respect great champions, and it's good to send a captain who knows them. Now, when Mark says Langer and Woosnam deserve it more, I take that on board. Certainly, Mark is more closely in touch with the players than I am. But in some ways that's not helpful, because it can sometimes stop you doing the right thing."

Speaking of doing the right thing, the first Ryder Cup in which Gallacher took part, as a callow 20-year-old in 1969, remains memorable for the magnanimity of Jack Nicklaus, who on the final green at Royal Birkdale conceded a three-foot putt to Tony Jacklin that halved the match and tied the contest. Sam Snead, the American captain, was furious.

"Snead wouldn't give you a two-inch putt, far less a three-footer. But Nicklaus, I think he's the greatest both on and off the golf course. He seems to do the right thing. And he could see the bigger picture. He thought, 'I can't allow him to miss this, it isn't what the Ryder Cup's about. I hope the same would happen now, that some of the captains would walk on and pick it up, even though the crowd certainly wouldn't expect it.

"Would I have done it, give an American a three-footer to halve the Ryder Cup? Sitting here I would say definitely, but you can get carried away with the emotion. Maybe it's Azinger you're playing, maybe he's given you nothing all the way round. But yeah, I hope I would have done it."

A pause. "And I hope that Sam would, too."

Bernard Gallacher: The life and times

Name: Bernard Gallacher

Born: 9 February 1949, Bathgate, West Lothian

Lives: Virginia Water, Surrey

Family: Wife, Lesley, three children: Laura, Jamie and Kirsty, a presenter with Sky Sports

Interests: Keeping fit, reading and exercising the dog

Career: Took up golf at the age of 11 and after a brief amateur career, made a meteoric rise in the professional world, becoming the youngest-ever winner of the Harry Vardon Trophy in 1969. In the same year, he became the youngest player to represent Great Britain and Ireland in the Ryder Cup, a record subsequently beaten by Nick Faldo, Paul Way and Sergio Garcia. He went on to compete in eight Ryder Cup matches before becoming non-playing captain of Europe in 1991, 1993, and 1995. While a Tour player, he was also the club professional at Wentworth Golf Club and retained that position until retiring in 1997.

What now? After retiring he joined the European Seniors Tour and has continued to be enjoy success. In 2001 alone, he achieved six top-10 finishes and amassed £103,029 in official prize-money. He won his first Seniors title, the Mobile Cup at Stoke Pages, in 2002. Apart from seniors golf and the odd stint as a TV commentator, Gallacher now works with a number of blue-chip companies, particularly on their corporate entertainment packages. He and his management company set up Professional Sports Events in 1998.

He says: (reflecting on captaining Europe to Ryder Cup victory in 1995): "People had been writing the team off and had been writing me off for a long time. But we proved we could win and we did it in style."

They say: "Bernard was probably the best captain I played under. He has a great head; he came and spoke to you about everything." Sam Torrance, current European Ryder Cup captain

"He fostered a wonderful team spirit in all the teams he captained and took tremendous credit for restoring dignity to the 1993 match at The Belfry after the hot-tempered atmosphere at Kiawah Island in 1991." Renton Laidlaw in the Evening Standard

And another thing: Gallacher made history on the first day of the new millennium by taking part in the driving-in ceremony as captain at Wentworth, becoming the first professional in Britain to be accorded the honour of captaining the club where he worked.

Research: Guy McCrea