Saturday night’s alright for fighting. The chaotic stooshie involving Rory McIlroy and Patrick Cantlay’s caddie, Joe LaCava, produced the kind of eye-popping scenes you’d get at one of Caligula’s effervescent shindigs.

The palaver on the 18th green, and the subsequent effing, blinding and finger wagging, reminded the diarist of the lively conclusion to The Herald sports desk’s spring outing when the fitba' correspondent assumed he’d been conceded a 25-footer.

Perhaps it was mere coincidence, but not long after the rammy, an official email on security measures was sent to media folk saying, “we would like to ask everyone to remain vigilant and report anything or anyone that looks out of place.” Joe LaCava losing the plot on the 18th perhaps? Or the doddering diarist…

*The golf writers are a hungry old lot and the dining facility in the media centre has been dishing up some fine fare around the clock to keep the cogs of industry clanking away. One of the diarist’s colleagues consumes so much food, he’s actually discovered a meal between breakfast and brunch.

Away from the factory floor, an associate was given a lesson in the Italian way of eating when he sliced some of his spaghetti with a knife and got a ticking off from the waiter. “We do not cut,” he tut-tutted with a withering snort. It’s a good job he didn’t see the diarist wrestling with his Fettucine Alfredo.

*It’s arrivederci Roma. It’s ta-ta too to a printed programme at the Ryder Cup these days. The paying punters have been left disappointed at the inability to take home a little memento.

The decision to opt for an App-based production was taken with sustainability in mind. The Ryder Cup is going paperless. As for this diary? Well, it remains pointless. Ciao for now.