By one of those minor blessings, Colin Montgomerie and Sandy Lyle have not been drawn to go out together in the opening round of the Open today at Turnberry. Had they been, it might have been like watching Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush toddling off down the fairway together.

The Lyle-Montgomerie row rumbled on yesterday. Lyle's bitter disappointment at not getting the 2010 Ryder Cup captaincy has resulted in a number of waffling outbursts from the 1985 Open champion.

He does not mean to be disparaging towards Montgomerie, he just seems to blunder into it. Lyle thinks that it is fine to quote the “Monty cheating incident” of the Indonesian Open of 2005 in Jakarta, given that everyone else - players, reporters, fans - talk about it intermittently. In Jakarta, Montgomerie was accused of placing a ball in a more favourable position after a rain delay.

Montgomerie has reacted like a cuckolded husband to the insinuation of sharp practice. Yesterday he was seen flouncing around the practice area, complaining about Lyle to George O'Grady, the chief executive of the European Tour.

Given Lyle's malapropism-strewn comments this week about not meaning to offend Montgomerie - “None of this was prefabricated on my part,” Lyle said - he has been savaged by most golf observers at Turnberry for being a likeable oaf and a loose cannon.

“I like Sandy, but he can be a dope, and he's only made things worse,” said one commentator, which just about captured the mood. If ever evidence was needed for why Lyle should never be a Ryder Cup captain, all this is it.

Yesterday a posse of reporters followed Montgomerie to get from the horse's mouth his thoughts about Lyle's comments and Montgomerie took on a darkened mood. Such occasions require a politician's tactical nous: to speak or not to speak? Straining to keep his indignation in check, Montgomerie kept his comments brief.

Lyle, having put his foot in it, kept a low profile yesterday and mercifully saw better than to speak out again. From Montgomerie's point of view, it was bad enough that Lyle had raked up the Jakarta episode, without compounding it all by adding that “the TV doesn't lie”.

There have been a few voices of support for Lyle. After all, the 51-year-old Scot has only repeated what many have said about Montgomerie's Jakarta moment. “Sandy has just been frank and honest and said it straight,” one Scottish golf writer said. “Is that such a sin?”

Lyle is beyond argument, more loved than Montgomerie. To boot, he has the 1985 Open and 1988 Masters titles to his name.

The truth is, Lyle has felt a deep pain that his greater achievements have not been rewarded with a Ryder Cup captaincy, which has gone to all his peers before him: Nick Faldo, Sam Torrance, Ian Woosnam, Bernhard Langer and Severiano Ballesteros. And the episode has left two erstwhile friends not speaking to each other.