On the back of the grandstand that overlooks the first tee at Valhalla Golf Club is a quote from Samuel Ryder, the Manchester-born founder of the biennial match between the US and Europe. Printed on green canvas and in words that stand tall, it says: “I trust that the effect of this match will be to influence a cordial, friendly and peaceful feeling throughout the whole civilised world.”

Ryder was perhaps dreaming when he thought golf could change the world, but he was entitled to believe his tournament would be played within the spirit of a game whose greatest characteristic is spiritual. Without its unwritten laws and its challenge to our sense of fair play, golf is nothing. It was for this that Ryder paid the London company Mappin & Webb 100 guineas to make the blessed cup.

Not everyone at Valhalla this week has respected the game’s values. In the fourball match involving Lee Westwood and Soren Hansen against Boo Weekley and JB Holmes, the US team struck a decisive blow when Weekley holed a 40-foot downhill putt from off the 12th green. In a tight match, that putt would have felt like a stake through the hearts of the Europeans. After his ball disappeared into the hole, Weekley celebrated exuberantly, inviting, exhorting and ultimately orchestrating a “USA, USA . . .” chant from the crowd.

While this sideshow was enacted, Westwood waited to take a putt that might have halved the hole. Westwood is a mild-mannered man and it takes a lot to get on his wrong side. Weekley, though, managed it comfortably and, unsettled, Westwood unsurprisingly missed his difficult putt. “You walk a fine line when you start doing that sort of thing,” the English player said afterwards. “I don’t mind when they’re raising their arms and whooping the crowd up. But when it occurs where Boo holed it from off the back and I’ve still got a putt for a half . . . There’s no need to do it between the shots. At least wait until you’re walking up to the green or walking off the green. I’m not bothered about that, but it was interrupting the flow of play when we were trying to play.”

Weekley would apologise when told of Westwood’s annoyance, but the greater responsibility for the bad behaviour lies not with the US player but his captain, Paul Azinger. To better understand how desperately Azinger wanted the US to win this Ryder Cup, you needed to be among his audience at an outdoor rally to drum up support for his team in downtown Louisville on Thursday evening. “You can cheer when they miss,” said Azinger to the crowd. ‘They’ referred to the Europeans.

He would later try to justify his comment by saying European crowds cheer missed US shots when they have home advantage and, really, it wasn’t meant to be malicious. In many other respects Azinger has been an excellent captain and has contributed handsomely to the togetherness that has been a key aspect of the team’s performance. But there is a line in golf and Azinger stupidly went bounding over it.

Because it wasn’t just wrong, it was pointless. Those with an inclination to cheer when a man misses a putt don’t need to be encouraged, and Azinger just didn’t understand his own fans. “When I heard he had said that,” said Paula Evans, who with her husband Wes made the 17-hour journey by road from San Antonio in Texas to be at the Ryder Cup, “I thought, ‘No, he can’t have said that’. You never cheer people’s misfortunes in golf. But nobody out here has listened to Paul Azinger. There hasn’t been any cheering when a European player misses a putt.”

“It’s not the classy thing to do,” said Brad Ewald from Saukville in Wisconsin, who was attending his first Ryder Cup. “I wouldn’t ever cheer a missed putt. There’s no reason to do that.”

Ewald then opened the course guide, available to spectators at Valhalla, and pointed to a sentence in the opening-page message from the two captains, Azinger and Nick Faldo. “While all good shot-making should be applauded, the prospective misfortunes of an opposing player should never be celebrated.”

Stoked up by the US captain and his cheerleader-in-chief, Weekley, the Valhalla crowd has been boisterous and passionate but it hasn’t crossed the line into bad behaviour, nor even gone close. By ignoring the US captain, they and their innate decency have saved the dignity of the match.

Joe Ilari sat on his own in a corner of the grandstand overlooking the 16th hole. He’s from Louisville, had worked for a railroad company for 40 years before agreeing to take care of the driving range at Valhalla. His wife calls it his retirement job and in return he gets to play a lot of golf on the course. “People from round here,” he said, “come to see good golf. This crowd wouldn’t cheer a missed putt.”

Another part of Azinger’s stupidity is that his team didn’t need any untoward help from the crowd. They have played great golf, especially on the opening day, and the captain made some astute choices of pairings. Justin Leonard and Hunter Mahan played well together, Anthony Kim and Phil Mickelson were outstanding until they discovered rookie Oliver Wilson on the 17th green in yesterday’s foursomes, and Jim Furyk and Kenny Perry have been an outstanding partnership.

Perry comes from the small town of Franklin, Kentucky. His only experience of the Ryder Cup was at Oakland Hills four years ago, when he lost his two matches. He dedicated this year to making the team. So eager was he to make the side, he didn’t try to qualify for the US Open and didn’t travel to Birkdale for the Open Championship.

Perry, 48, has won 12 times on the PGA Tour and three times this year. Yet two days before this Ryder Cup began, he said his entire career would be defined by how he played this weekend. In his opening match, a foursomes where he was paired with Furyk against Westwood and Sergio Garcia, Perry played wonderfully until the match reached its critical point.

He missed a six-foot putt on the 17th to win the match and then drove his tee-shot into the water on the 18th to allow the Europeans to gain a half. It wasn’t a surprise that he went out yesterday morning and played well with Furyk to win their foursomes match against Padraig Harrington and Robert Karlsson.

Perry, too, was a model of good behaviour. He is one of Kentucky’s most high-profile sportsmen and unquestionably its most loved. He is, after all, a man who borrowed $2.5m 13 years ago to build a public golf course in Franklin and insisted that it would always remain affordable to those of limited means. This weekend, the crowds here rooted for him more than any other player and though his response was always warm, it was understated and respectful of his opponents. He made a birdie putt that circled the second hole against Harrington and Karlsson and won the hole for the US. The crowd hollered its approval. Perry just looked a little embarrassed and limply raised an arm to accept the applause.

There have been other US players who have performed excellently, who never needed, and would never have wanted, their supporters to cheer European misses.

It should be a salutary lesson for Azinger.