Interview: Bernard Gallacher

Who knows where the time goes? It seems like only yesterday for Bernard Gallacher when he thinks back to his debut in the Ryder Cup, striding, nay running, up to the tee to do battle with Lee Trevino when only a callow 20-year-old. Yet suddenly he is here, recovering from the pleasant chore of paying for daughter Kirsty's wedding last month.

A further indication of the march of time is the imminent arrival of another Ryder Cup, the biennial event by which Gallacher has measured out his life. Or perhaps it is more a case of the rest of us measuring out his life in Ryder Cups for him. "In a way, yeah," is his lukewarm response to an assertion that his career has been defined by the event. But there is an acknowledgement that the clash has always captured his imagination, even before it mutated into its present glossy form.

"As a kid you dream about winning the Open and you dream about playing in the Ryder Cup," Gallacher says. The closest he came to the first target was a tie for 18th place at Royal Troon in 1973. But he featured as a player eight times in the Ryder Cup, then led what by then had become a European side three times as non-playing captain.

Indeed, on the weekend when Colin Montgomerie reveals his three captain's picks, Gallacher is the obvious go-to guy. He's been there, done that more times than any other European skipper save for Tony Jacklin, although the deliberations faced by Gallacher were not quite so agonising as those now giving Montgomerie a headache, nor the glare quite as intense. Gallacher is simply glad he only had two wild-card choices to cope with.

A golfing purist, it is perhaps unsurprising that he finds the Pop Idol-esque selection policy just a bit over the top for his liking. Not that Montgomerie is inviting the public to vote anyone in - or out - of the running. But there is a certain brouhaha which Gallacher could do without.

"It is a more difficult job now because there is more media attention," he accepts, referring to what his compatriot has already had to endure, with an added complication being dramas in Montgomerie's own personal life. Indeed, Gallacher will himself be a member of the platoon of journalists and reporters marching on Celtic Manor in time for the first day of October, when the latest Ryder Cup tussle begins, as part of the Radio Five Live team covering the event.

There won't be a person on the course more qualified to give his views. He proved an inspirational captain in his time, pairing together the likes of Nick Faldo and Montgomerie, Seve Ballesteros and Jose-Maria Olazabal. And then there is the combination about which he is proudest: Constantino Rocca and Sam Torrance. "I wouldn't say it was inspired," says Gallacher. "I didn't really have any intention of playing them together and kept an open mind about pairings. But I thought, why not? Sam was up for it and Constantino was too. They liked each other. They were a very good combination; jolly, enthusiastic..."

He adds: "Sometimes you can over-think. You can become too firm in your mind. As the tournament evolves Colin has to keep an open mind."

Although these words of advice are offered with grace, Gallacher recognises that his wisdom has been gathered from another era, even if it was just the 90s - the era of Britpop and the birth of the Premiership. It isn't so long ago. When Gallacher captained Europe - in 1991, 1993 and, memorably, to victory at Oak Hill in 1995 - he held down a job as the professional at Wentworth, and was still on the tour. "I didn't have to market the event so much," he recalls. "Colin, I think, feels he has to promote it. He is the public face of the Ryder Cup.

"I dealt with the players OK because I handled staff at the pro shop in Wentworth and had experience in handling people," the Scot continues. "But to be honest the players were very co-operative. At the end of the day we are all trying to beat America. We are all singing from the same hymn sheet."

The piece of paper which Montgomerie will hold in his hand at Gleneagles tomorrow, and from which he will reveal his three wild-card choices, is all important. It will instantly earn him an enemy or two. Paul Casey, Padraig Harrington and Justin Rose are the expected beneficiaries of the invitations to make up the 12-strong team. But then what about Luke Donald, or Robert Karlsson? "Colin has made a rod for his back," says Gallacher. "He actually wanted an additional pick. He was the one who wanted three picks. When I was captain it was only two picks in those days, and so it was much easier."

Gallacher recalls his own awkward moment prior to the 1995 event, having to phone up Ian Woosnam to tell him that he was not only picking Olazabal over him, but also allowing the Spaniard time to figure out whether he was fit enough to take part. ln the end he said he wasn't. Gallacher had to go back to Woosnam to tell him he was in after all. "Ian at first was quite hostile towards me," recalls Gallacher. "But I came clean. I told him why I wanted Olazabal in the team - to partner Seve - and explained that I had given him a few days [to think about it]."

Woosnam, to his credit, accepted both the eventual invite, and the explanation. Indeed, he had to endure a tricky moment of his own when he became skipper, 11 years later. Thomas Bjorn gave the Welshman both barrels after being left out. It's a mark of what the Ryder Cup means to people and also indicative of the competitive spirit which lies within. Like any sportsperson, each contender wants a shot at the glory, and the fame.

"At the end of day, you want them to be annoyed," points out Gallacher. "It's like a football manager. If a player is not annoyed when you haul him off the field there's maybe something wrong."

The desire to feature is wrapped up in a lot of things. There is an element of personal interest - each player will earn a considerable sum from sponsorship - but there is also the knowledge that they are part of something that is golf's version of the Champions League. Sky Sports cover it, doing what they do best by marrying slick presentation with frenzied hype. But it's not just them. We all become curiously caught up in it, favouring one continent over another - or at least a superpower. It is a concept which is completely alien elsewhere in the sporting world.

"It has become a so much more bigger thing," says Gallacher. "Even in 95, I thought it was big enough then. But it's in overdrive now. These wild-cards have really brought a theatre to it. It's the same in America. We know Corey Pavin is going to pick Tiger Woods, but they are holding it back. They have no more qualifying events. But they are holding it back, for what reason I do not know. Maybe they want to see who Colin picks first. They are adding drama and theatre to it, which I think is unnecessary, to be honest. In fact, I don't think there should even be any wild-cards. We have a sophisticated world ranking system, which the guys who are not playing full-time should be able to qualify through. If they are not good enough to do that then they are not good enough to get into the Ryder Cup, in my view."

Tiger Woods, of all people, is having to rely on the captain's pick route and Gallacher thinks he could benefit from accepting this call, and putting his shoulder to the wheel. The thought might be a bracing one for Woods. Not only will he be guaranteed more unwanted attention, but there are parts of the pomp and ceremony which he will understandably find difficult. The inevitable focus on wives and girlfriends will pour salt on the wound of his own current predicament. "I think America have a few single guys in the team," says Gallacher. "Not all will bring girlfriends, not all will bring wives. I think in the past Nick Faldo turned up [alone] when he was in between marriages."

Should Woods decide to endure this further public examination it could, according to Gallacher, help his rehabilitation on both sides of the Atlantic. A humbled Woods, rolling up his sleeves and going to work for the benefit of his team-mates, would sit well with the public. "I think it could be one of his steps to redemption," says Gallacher.

Woods' likely participation is another strand to an intriguing contest, one which hands golf fans the chance to indulge in the kind of passionate support more associated with football. Sometimes it can go too far. Gallacher relished the Ryder Cup, the chance his first one offered a young man in just his second year as a professional - "I ran onto the tee, I was so pleased to play" - and the freebies.

"I was just overwhelmed by the amount of stuff you got; suits, ties, trousers," he recalls. "I thought: ‘this is great'. Suddenly I was walking around wearing cashmere sweaters." But later, much later, Gallacher was also exposed to the dark side of the event, when emotion tipped over into something rather more unpleasant. "It was a cocktail of euphoria," he reflects, when describing the post-Gulf war atmosphere at Kiawah Island in 1991.

"Corey Pavin [the current US skipper] actually wrote to me afterwards and said: ‘Look I am sorry about that. I was probably quite a big offender, but I think I got it wrong, the Ryder Cup is more than that'. I appreciated that letter. He'll be a very good captain. He told me that at the end of the day it is supposed to be a goodwill match between the best players in the world."

That seems as fitting a description as any for a contest that while certain to dominate the back pages, falls some way short of being the big event of Gallacher's year. This has already occurred, when Kirsty, the broadcaster and eldest of his three children, was married to rugby player Paul Simpson in the Spanish town of Arcos de la Frontera, where her father has a house. The nerves and sense of pride as Gallacher delivered a speech that day even exceeded the feelings which mingled in his chest as he stepped up to the podium as skipper on the eve of past Ryder Cups.

In a sporting context, Gallacher isn't just obsessed with golf. As a season ticket holder at Craven Cottage he keeps an eye on Fulham's progress and also that of Hibs, who he has supported since a boy growing up in Bathgate.

But hardly has our conversation finished when Gallacher can be heard across the airwaves as he returns to addressing the subject he loves on Five Live in his still discernible Scottish brogue, providing listeners with perhaps the most informed view of all on the Ryder Cup. He might not have needed to market it in his day. But he's doing a grand job now.