Inevitably, a tough man lay beneath and this is revealed in his autobiography For Love or Money, in which he confesses he often prayed for his opponents to miss, he wanted them to lose and that he didn't admire everyone.

Colin Montgomerie fares badly in his eyes. In 1984 they were in Hong Kong for the Eisenhower Trophy and McEvoy tells how he, David Gilford and Garth McGimpsey boasted over dinner how they had got onto the team by winning sundry championships and taunted a 20-year-old Montgomerie that he had got there by steady golf but no wins. "We nailed him to the wall with the cruelty of schoolchildren.

"Yes, Monty was only 20, but Olazabal (who had beaten him in the final of the British Amateur) was only 18. Faldo was just 17 when he won the English Amateur together with umpteen other events that year. As a young man, Monty's achievements were remarkable, but not phenomenal.

"Nearly 20 years, and around 100 tournaments later he still hasn't won in America. In some ways Monty is not the man he is made out to be by the publicists of the professional game. His image has been fashioned by the need of sponsors and the British media to create winners."

They played together again in the 1986 World Championship in Caracas with McGimpsey and David Curry. Montgomerie scored well but they finished 12th.

"The team finished up as three of us and Monty. There was an unpleasant atmosphere and we were an unhappy team."

The shocking sequel, for them, was that McEvoy and McGimpsey were both omitted from the following year's Walker Cup team and didn't get explanations.

The animosities and revulsions run internationally, too, as McEvoy reveals when critiquing Phil Mickelson, whose failure to win points at Walker Cup and Ryder Cup level leads him to think he has a flaw as a matchplayer.

At the 1989 Walker Cup at Peachtree, the American caused consternation in the British and Irish camp when responding to his singles draw against Eoghan O'Connell by approaching the Irishman and saying: "Hello, are you Garth? I'm Phil. We're playing tomorrow. Hope we have a good game." The likes of that was unknown.

Mickelson didn't impress McEvoy next day either, when he conceded a short putt to O'Connell on the last green. He surmises: "Some kids get a sugar rush and become hyperactive. Mickelson must have had an American pie rush, he became hyper sincere." After another meeting, McEvoy says, "I left quietly through the side door and heaved gently in the bushes." Such is the nature of amateur golf.