Paul Azinger may have wanted noise and aggression, he may have wanted to whip up a jingoistic frenzy, he may have thought that Americans cheering missed putts by Europe might be the difference, but the lesson of Louisville is that people - or golf fans, or blue-collar workers, or whatever you want to call the tens of thousands who lined the fairways here - are generally decent, they understand the basic ethics of sportsmanship and they would rather force bourbon and hospitality upon their guests than a mid-South loathing.

Kentucky is a state that provides a service in the United States by giving outsiders a sense of superiority. However, the apparent army of inbred farmers who chew tobacco and sleep with their firearm failed to turn up at Valhalla, not even on singles Sunday, when the atmosphere tingled and the chants of “USA! USA!” echoed around the course.

The locals, so the story went, were going to fry the Euros. Golf etiquette would be challenged. Samuel Ryder would be executing triple salchows in his grave. As it was, arrests on this course, by the end of Saturday, numbered zero; only one person had been ejected from the course and that was a photographer who committed the cardinal sin of clicking his shutter when Phil Mickelson was on his backswing.

If the Kentucky battalions had it in them to go to war, then yesterday would certainly have been the day - and the generals leading the march would have been Anthony Kim and Boo Weekley. This pair of American rookies have taken their behaviour on the course to levels never seen before.

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No other Ryder Cup players have seen their roles as part golfer, part orchestra conductor. Sergio García has been about as lively as any European, but his antics have involved fizzing like a firework in conjunction with his partner. Kim and Weekley were all about the relationship with the crowd.

Kim's early annihilation of García was perfect for anyone in red; three up after seven, he was punching the air, high-fiving the crowd, clutching the collar of his red shirt and gesturing at the gallery and raising his arms to conduct the chants of “USA! USA!” Weekley, meanwhile, was drunk on adrenalin, so drunk that he departed the 1st tee riding his driver as if it were a hobby-horse. And while golf etiquette says nothing about riding your driver, the concept was certainly one that appealed to the crowd.

The sun and Kim and Weekley precipitated possibly about as loud a Ryder Cup crowd as there has been - but aggressive, nasty, Brookline-like they were not. Yes, there was glee aplenty when García struck two shots into the water on the 7th, but the difference was the taunting of Brookline; here was more a case of high spirits.

And maybe this is what Azinger had in mind when he informed a local crowd on Thursday that it was fair game to cheer when the Europe players missed putts here. Azinger's astonishing affront to the spirit of this event was then followed by the limpest of justifications the next day, that it was OK to incite such partisanship because the same happens when Americans play in Europe.

The fact is, though, that golf crowds both sides of the Atlantic understand how this game works. Yes, there are aberrations. Yes, you have heard here the occasional “In the water” when a European has played; you also heard on Saturday a shout of “Miss it” when Ian Poulter was mid-shot on the 18th.

However, it remains the fact that the loudest “Boos” all week have been the choruses of adulation following Weekley. He has done more than any other to incite the crowd here and he himself issued an apology to Lee Westwood when the Briton complained that he had breached the lines of etiquette and respect.

Yesterday, though, Weekley found a far better way to inspire the galleries: he hit five birdies in his first eight holes. Azinger wanted a thirteenth man? It was Weekley's golf that delivered it.

Which makes you wonder what happened to the bumptiousness of the European crowd on the 1st tee. If there is one department in which Europeans remain superior here, it is in their mastery of football chants. Americans, it turns out, cannot even fathom the basic rhythms.

“You only sing when you're winning,” the Europeans chanted, to which the Americans came back with “You've only got seven points,” with rhythm and tempo totally absent. But the Europeans then showed them the way, responding with, “We only need 14.”