It may be just as well that Lee Westwood is, in general terms, a cool and laid-back customer. After all, golf can do without fist fights on the fairways.
The Englishman, making only his third appearance this year, in the Bay Hill Invitational in Orlando, Florida, has been drawn in a group with an American who admits that there is "lingering animosity" between them and that an incident in the 1999 Ryder Cup match has still not been forgotten.
The man with the memory is Phil Mickelson, the world's best left-hander and a person who can see nothing wrong with the behaviour of the American team on the last day of that acrimonious match at the Brookline Country Club in Boston.
In fact he seems to believe that, on the whole, the home team observed the etiquette of the game rather better than did the Europeans which, to say the least of it, is a different take on events.
Mickelson seems to sincerely believe that there was a deliberate attempt by the the European team to play so slowly that it would get up the noses of their opponents. He said: "It was said in European team meetings, whether they'll admit to it or not, that the best way to bother American players is to `slowplay' them. Hit an exorbitant number of practice putts, whatever, so that we'd have to play at their pace.
"When Tom Lehman and I played a match against Darren Clarke and Lee Westwood we had just won the 10th hole and that's exactly what they did. So I walked up to the next tee and teed off, because I wasn't going to let my rhythm and timing get affected by my opponent.
"They didn't like that. They still don't. They're still upset about it. There is still a little bit of lingering animosity."
Where Mickelson gets his information from is a mystery - surely the European team room wasn't bugged? - and just as he is most certainly wrong about a concerted team plan to play slowly, so he is just as mistaken about Westwood's feelings.
The Worksop golfer has a long history of not being concerned about such matters, of just getting on with the job in hand, of not letting animosity linger.
He was asked yesterday for his opinion on Mickelson's opinion and said simply: "I haven't seen what he said. As far as I'm concerned that Ryder Cup match is all done, finished. We lost. They won. They had a great last day performance. They deserved to win."
There seems to be a difference of interpretation there, but all Westwood, who will spend today and tomorrow playing 36 holes with Mickelson, would say is: "It's funny how these draws happen. Very strange. But I'll probably have a chat with him."
Meanwhile, Westwood's good friend, Darren Clarke, hopes a putting tip from Westwood during a practice round on Monday will enable him to re-discover the winning form he showed in taking the title in the recent Dimension Data Pro Am in South Africa.
"Lee gave me a tip the other day and I've spent a bit of time with Scotty Cameron, and we are going to do it again today. I think he's got me back on track.
"My alignment was all wrong and I was coming across it, but if I start knocking a few putts in this week then I'll be okay as I'm striking it well."
On Tuesday, Tiger Woods said, among other things, that he had been consciously preparing for the Masters since the start of the year and that if he won it, he would regard himself as the holder of the Grand Slam. He did, of course, win the last three championships of 2000, but the man who invented the professional Grand Slam, Arnold Palmer, disagreed strongly with the young pretender yesterday.
He said: "In 1960 I won the Masters and the US Open, and I was talking to a sportswriter before going to the Open at St Andrews. I said: `Wouldn't it be unique to have a Grand Slam of golf? Wouldn't it be great to win at St Andrews and then come back and win the PGA?' He wrote about it, and that's how the modern Grand Slam came into being.
"But for Tiger to say winning three in one year and then a fourth in another year is a Slam is ridiculous. That is not the case. If he wins in Augusta this year he's starting a run at the Slam, not finishing one."
