David Howell

As an isolated comment, it might seem daft, but that’s precisely what David Howell is – alive. He’s all-too prepared to ridicule himself (he uses the phrase “plod along” twice on tape in the first five minutes), but unlike 90 per cent of all interviewees, he offers that golden phrase all journalists love: “the funny thing about that was...” which can be roughly translated as:

“You didn’t ask me the right question, but I’m going to give you a much more interesting answer because I’m quite a nice feller, actually.”

Consequently, we learn that the first thought that entered the mind of the Ryder Cup rookie as he struck the six-iron on the 17th hole of his and partner Paul Casey’s crucial fourballs match with Chad Campbell and Jim Furyk on Saturday morning was: “That’s in the fucking trap, then.”

He was wrong. He might well have felt “it wasn’t the purest of strikes”; he might well have thought he had “almost got some kind of semi-flyer”, and he might well have anxiously walked to the edge of the tee as it hopped and skipped past the bunker before resting just six feet from the hole.

According to the people who know, that was the greatest golf shot of 2004. According to David Howell: “It’s nice how it panned out, but I should have remembered one of the golden rules of my junior golf days: pose on every shot because the selectors never know where it’s gone.”

Three things in particular have struck Howell since the glorious madness of Oakland Hills. One is that too much has been made of the “team spirit thing”. “The team spirit of the US team looked fine to me,” he elaborates. “OK, I haven’t been in another Ryder Cup team so I’m not in a great position to compare, but it was no more intense than a Seve Trophy team or a Walker Cup team.

“But that’s not to downplay the victory at all. I can remember on the 18th fairway when we’d already won, Darren (Clarke) and Lee (Westwood) were going to me: ‘You’ve got to enjoy this moment, Howler, because it doesn’t get any better than this.’ They’d been a part of winning and losing sides in the past, so they really understood the significance of the victory.”

He also remembers the spine-tingling effect of Colin Montgomerie’s speech during a team meeting after the first day’s play.

“Bernhard did everything right, but he wasn’t an inspirational figure in the way Sam (Torrance) probably was. After the first day it looked like we were in a great position and Monty basically said: ‘We’ve got a fantastic opportunity here, we’ve probably got the best team we’ve ever had – and this is our moment.’ You could tell from that moment alone that when he gets the captaincy in the future he’ll do a fantastic job of it.”

The other prominent memory of Ryder Cup 2004 he claims sums him up perfectly: “After the victory dinner we left the hotel to go to the Irish bar, which was round the corner. I remembered I hadn’t got any money and Westie said, ‘You won’t need any money where we’re going, mate, don’t worry about that.’ Emily (Howell’s girlfriend) is with me and going, ‘Go on, get up on the bar with the other players,’ and I’m saying, ‘I don’t really want to,’ but I get up there anyway.

“After an hour of hero worship, which was wonderful, great fun, we go and have a drink at the back. I order a couple of pints from a barman and he says, ‘That’ll be ten dollars.’ I remember I haven’t got any money and grovel a bit and he says, ‘What are you doing ordering drinks when you haven’t got any money?’

» Dave Howell Pt.3