Of all the emblems of Europeanness which the Americans might have chosen to hate, they picked Colin Mongomerie, the man who relished their animosity most. When things got tough and noisy yesterday, as each victorious American stoked up the crowd to further excesses of partisanship it was to Monty's match with Payne Stewart that they gravitated, continuing a hate-hate relationship which has been burning passionately for some time.

"It just makes me perform," said Monty afterwards.

By the time Stewart took the match to all sqaure on the 15th Brookline was a boiling cauldron. They inflated Stewart with their craziness. Montgomerie was the symbol of what had to be defeated. Walking the narrow chasms between the crowd on the journey from green to tee the noise was deafening, cruel. A mass rally of nationalistic fervour. U-S-A! U-S-A! Monty you suck!

On the 18th Stewart conceded the hole.

"It wasn't right to make Colin stand there and have to make that putt. The match was me against Colin. Not Colin against the crowd."

It might have been Jean Van de Velde, the fragile amphibious Frenchman, they picked on. It might have been Sergio Garcia, the combustible Spanish firecracker, or Lee Westwood the tabloid-fed Englishman, perhaps even one of those cold-blooded Swedes. But no, the Americans had it in for Monty, the flatfooted Scot with the face only a mother could love.

The crowd, pinked by sunshine, drink and excitement were never off Monty's case as he stood down the onslaught. The man with his finger in the dyke.

He holed out spectacularly on the third yesterday saving his par against Payne Stewart, whose plus-fours are apparently beyond common reproach.

"Yeah, not bad you big oaf," came a voice from behind the rope. Monty sucked in the gut, picked the ball out and passed on like royalty. As the European challenge went to white knuckle mode yesterday Montogemerie emerged true to form. The best player in the world never to have won a major. You could see why. He put Payne Stewart away. Let him up again. Put him away again.

David Feherty once described Monty as having a face like a bulldog who has just licked some piss of a nettle. He was being affectionate. And kind.

Monty looks as if the taste and smell of bad eggs haunt him.

The wirewool hair has a Lord Fauntleroy parting, the upturned nose and sour mouth yield to generous jowl and then the glorious avoirdupois, as we Europeans call it. No neck, a body with a soft bosomy roll to it, the centre of gravity a good jiggly mound of belly which swells and withers as regularly as Oprah Winfrey's.

He cruises the fairways with a majesty that reduces even the corporate fops to the rank of peasantry. He progresses as if he should be wearing a toga and a crown of laurels. They hate him for his imperiousness.

Payne Stewart caught the atmosphere and disliked it.

"The heckling and name-calling out there wasn't fair. It was not necessary, There were numerous incidents. I appreciate the gallery, I know it's a vent for pride but it's not life or death. Some of our fans were out of control. I told Colin I would do anything I could, I would talk to security. I don't know why people behaved like that."

On Saturday morning he seemed more annoyed by the cheerleading of one of his opponents than the bile from behind the ropes. Hal Sutton, one of the surprise successes on the US team had taken to waving his arms to get the partisan crowd going anytime he made a decent shot. The orchestration of the crowd often took place before the Europeans had the opportunity to play.

"They're losing and losing heavily," said Monty on Saturday "they need it. It was never going to be easy out there, it was probably a little more than anticipated - you know, their players geeing up the crowd like that. It's slightly unfair sometimes before we play our shots."

It's nothing new, see. After the final hole of this year's US Open Montgomerie locked stares with a heckler and two years ago again at the US Open a heckler who cost him a putt was told to "Save it for the Ryder Cup".

The stand-off moment on Saturday came at the sixth hole in morning foursomes after a roar from the somebody in the crowd. The precise nature of the insult was indecipherable, as Monty drew back with his putter.

He stopped, gave a glare, returned to his meditations and then sank a spiteful six-foot putt to halve the hole.

Job done, he thrust his right fist high towards the gallery and glared a baleful glare. For a moment it looked as if he were going to ask the heckler to settle things there and then but he moved on.

By yesterday with the crowd fragmented about the course following the 12 matches in progress Monty was serene early on as he turned the crowd volume up and down. Topsy-turvy stuff. He slapped Payne Stewart dizzy by winning the fifth, sixth and seventh holes, going birdie-birdie-par.

Then as the 15th and 16th were becoming a noisy hospice for dying Europeans the incessant noise seemed to lift Stewart. He won eight and nine and halved 10 as the crowds swelled, recognising Monty's match as the pivotal game.

And so as it all wound down with the final two matches going one for Europe, one for the US, big Colin Montgomerie became a symbol of European resistance, his bluff silhouette leaning back against the Boston skyline, tugging the rope, hauling the Americans towards him inch by inch as others fell.

Heckled. Heroic. Futile. He was the last European standing