Where once the Ryder Cup had been a matter of turning up and winning for the USA, suddenly it was clear how much the contest actually meant. So much so, that Tom Lehman and a few of his teammates forgot themselves for a moment.

Instead of foaming at the mouth, Harrington has always reckoned that Europe and its supporters should have interpreted the admittedly inappropriate celebrations as a back-handed show of respect. After all, the competitive excellence of the European players had given the event a resonance it once lacked.

If there was any doubt over how badly most of America's leading professionals wanted to win the Ryder Cup, Brookline provided the answer.

Seven years on, and we have another Ryder Cup milestone.

Not solely the appointment of Paul Azinger as captain for the 2008 matches in Kentucky, but more the decision of the PGA of America to overhaul its qualifying system. With an emphasis on prize money earned, as well as on form in the immediate lead-up to the event, the most significant change of all is that Azinger will now have four picks. In other words, a third of the team will be at the captain's behest.

Although the right diplomatic noises were made last week, the wholesale abandonment of the system which was one of the factors in the USA's crushing defeats at both the K Club and Oakland Hills wasn't really an example of enlightened thinking by the blazers at the PGA of America.

Azinger put a gun to their head. He would only take the job if the old selection procedure was binned, a procedure which Fred Couples had called, "That top-10 stuff, a crazy way to pick a team." Azinger forced the hand of officialdom by demanding change, and admitted he would have been "reluctant" to accept the post if the PGA of America had opted for the status quo.

But to adopt Harrington's line of thinking, this revamp has been brought about by Europe's record-breaking dominance in the matches. With the PGA of America running scared of a third successive humiliation, and a seventh defeat in the last eight stagings, Azinger knew he was pushing an open door. The system was broken and it had to be fixed.

But in this climate of change, Azinger is also well aware that getting a strong, in-form team to Valhalla might still be less than half the battle. "The system's better than what we had, " said Scott Verplank, who won both his matches at the K Club, "but I don't think anything is going to matter until we figure out how to play this game as a team."

The intensity Harrington witnessed at Brookline has since been watered down by Tiger Woods's failure to bring his stroke play genius to the match play format, by Phil Mickelson's ambivalence and, of course, by Europe's burgeoning confidence.

While stressing that he will be a captain and not a coach, Azinger's goal will be to have his team to play in his own image because much of the 46-yearold's career has been defined by his performances at the Ryder Cup.

"I knew that when the chips were down, " said Tom Watson who captained America at the Belfry in 1993, "nobody on the team would give more of himself to win than Paul." Outspoken, uncompromising and highly competitive, Azinger would take on Nick Faldo that year in a singles which was regarded as the key to the overall outcome.

Faldo had once described Azinger's method as a "baseball grip and a hatchet swing", while Azinger made no secret of his dislike for the moody and introverted Faldo. "I've never had a conversation with him, " he said. "Who has?"

If their confrontation in '93 wasn't to prove pivotal in the end, it provided a snapshot of the American's toughness.

After Faldo had holed in one at the 14th hole, Azinger pointedly avoided walking up to the green where his opponent was understandably milking the applause. Where lesser competitors would have folded, Azinger responded by birdieing the next hole, and then birdied the last for a fighting half.

He had crassly brought up the Gulf War in the context of the 1991 Ryder Cup, and when Watson's team was due to meet Bill Clinton before travelling to England, Azinger, whose father had served in Vietnam, told his close friend Payne Stewart that he "didn't want to shake hands with a draft dodger".

Not content to butt heads with Faldo, whose 18 pars in the final round at Muirfield in 1987 deprived Azinger of the British Open title, he also clashed with Seve Ballesteros. "The Americans are 11 nice guys and Paul Azinger, " Ballesteros famously said, to which Azinger replied: "The king of gamesmanship doesn't like me. Good."

Undefeated in his four Ryder Cup singles games which included wins over Ballesteros and Olazabal, he characteristically signed off in his last appearance at the Belfry in 2002 by holing a bunker shot to earn a half with Niclas Fasth.

If 1993, with victory at the USPGA Championship as well as two other wins, proved to be his finest year, it was also a turning point in his career. After being diagnosed with lymphoma in his shoulder, he underwent six months of chemotherapy. "It was the first time in my life that I understood I wasn't bullet-proof, " he said. "I'm not afraid of dying because I believe in eternal life, but I didn't want to have my daughters watch me die. That scared me."

In the end, Azinger beat cancer, but lost his desire and his game. He had his faith . . . "Wanting to beat the other guy's brains out at golf and loving the Lord are not contradictory" . . . and he had his reputation as a major champion, but he couldn't win. It took him until 2000, just three months after Stewart's death in a plane accident, to break a six-year sequence.

That emotional success in Hawaii was his last, and as his form plummeted once more, he succumbed to one of many offers from television.

Ironically, he developed a successful onscreen chemistry with the old enemy Faldo, and while their partnership has been broken up with ABC's imminent exit from PGA Tour coverage, they will be rival captains at Valhalla.

Azinger has made an early mark.

After John Rollins earned more Ryder Cup points for winning the low-profile BC Open than Chris DiMarco, who was runner-up at the British Open in the same week last July, and when an American player who finished 11th at the Masters earned no points . . . but a player who was 10th at the BC Open did . . . it was clear the qualification system was a mess. At least Azinger has been the instigator of change.

Chad Campbell, Zach Johnson and Brett Wetterich didn't earn a single Ryder Cup point between them in the four months leading up to the matches at the K Club, and yet all three qualified, but with a premium on 2008 form and with double points for the major championships driving the new system, Azinger believes there "won't be a single player in January '08 who knows he's a lock for the team".

Then there's the matter of four wild cards where two had been the norm.

"The more picks you get, the better it is, " said Woods last week. The captain's new format may be common sense, but it's also a desperate measure.

Brought about by the fear of yet another humiliation.

PAUL AZINGER Age 46 Turned professional 1981 Wins 14 Majors (1) USPGA Championship 1993 PGA Tour earnings $14.2m Ryder Cup appearances (4) 1989, 91, 93, 2002 Record P16 W5 H3 L8 Pts 6 1/2Recovered from cancer in 1994