EXCLUSIVE BY DEREK LAWRENSON: Europe's captain Padraig Harrington could hardly be any clearer when it comes to the two schools of thought regarding this year's Ryder Cup.

MY SPORTING HERO BY CALUM CROWE: Growing up in Ayrshire, I was raised on a diet of Junior football and links golf. Both were in my blood from an early age and have stuck with me.

EXC INTERVIEW BY DEREK LAWRENSON: If you had to rank Sir Nick Faldo's six major championship wins, his successful defence of his Masters title 30 years ago might well finish bottom.

DEREK LAWRENSON: In 1995, Woods felt he'd stepped inside 'Disneyland, fantasyland, all rolled into one', when he cast his eye over Augusta National ahead of playing it for the first time.

Few Europeans were even allowed a glimpse of Augusta National in 1980. That all changed when Seve Ballesteros had the looks, the charisma, the game and then the priceless green jacket.

When a 19-year-old Tiger Woods stood over his first-ever putt at the Masters on his debut in 1995, it is fair to say the American prodigy was in for a rude awakening.

Tiger Woods revealed that his traditional Masters Champions Dinner with his family ended in a food fight. The reigning champion had a version of the traditional meal under quarantine with his family.

Count the previously buoyant European Tour as another branch of sport staring into a financial black hole owing to the effects of coronavirus.

The rigorous testing procedures put forward by the PGA Tour will involve players, caddies and officials being sent testing kits - already on mass order - to their homes.

DEREK LAWRENSON - WORLD OF GOLF: you are loath to argue with a 20-strong selection committee containing players like Nick Price, Curtis Strange and Annika Sorenstam.

Tiger Woods' arrogance on the course may have made him come across as a 'p****', but it is also what sets him apart as a true champion, according to his former coach.

DEREK LAWRENSON - WORLD OF GOLF: There is still a window before the Ryder Cup organisers make a final decision on whether it will go ahead as planned. But it's fair to say the mood has changed.

The Europe captain is determined to lead his side out at Whistling Straits, Wisconsin in September but accepts that the decision over whether the event should go ahead is 'above my pay grade'.

During an interview, Harrington revealed who he'd been in contact with recently before accidentally mentioning 'Luke', referencing Luke Donald, as one of his vice-captains for the event.

The mammoth remains, preserved in permafrost, were found this summer on Kotelny Island, part of the New Siberian archipelago in the Russian Arctic.

The House Oversight Committee chairman is demanding the White House hand over records of Trump-Putin meetings, and wants to know if Trump destroyed a translator's notes.

The Russian President will meet Theresa May at the G20 in Russia today where the Prime Minister will demand he admits to the Novichok attack and hand over the two spies sent to kill Sergei Skripal.

Theresa May is holding face-to-face talks with Vladimir Putin in Osaka, Japan in an attempt to thaw relations between Russia and Britain as she prepares to quit as PM next month.

President Donald Trump has landed in South Korea with daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, and a meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong Un may be on his agenda.

Putin's decree released on Wednesday formalizes Russia's departure from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty with the United States following Washington's withdrawal.

Bernie Ecclestone, 88, also said he thought Putin should be running Europe and that the invasion of Crimea was just to 'bring Russia back together.'

Theresa May said she had 'lived' politics for 50 years, and knew about its potential to 'improve people's lives'. But she said an inability to compromise was poisoning national life.

The Platoon director, pictured left with Putin and inset with his daughter, spoke to Putin on June 19 for his latest film about Ukraine.

The Russian President used the craft, a C-Explorer 3.11, to explore the Soviet Shchuka-class submarine Shch-308 which sunk in the Baltic Sea in October 1942 after hitting a German mine.

U.S. diplomat Jon Huntsman has resigned as Donald Trump's ambassador to Russia.

The spike in radiation in Russia yesterday may have been caused when one of Vladimir Putin's top secret Zircon hypersonic missiles exploded during tests, according to news reports in the country.

The Sukhoi-made Okhotsk - meaning Hunter - only made its maiden flight this month and Russia boasts it is 'almost undetectable' to Western enemies.

Steve Bullock, 2020 presidential candidate, on Sunday compared Ken Cuccinelli, the acting Director of the Citizenship and Immigration Services, to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Vladimir Putin vowed to prevent the emergence of mass protests yesterday speaking to French President Emmanuel Macron in southern France .

O'Donnell claimed on the air that a source had told him 'the co-signers of Donald Trump's Deutsche Bank loans are Russian billionaires close to Vladimir Putin.' Trump's lawyers threatened to sue.

'I love it when you call me señorita,' Trump appears to sing, one auto-tuned note at a time, with each word drawn from a different speech. 'I wish I could pretend I didn't need ya.'

Donald Trump's absence from an event commemorating the 80th anniversary of the invasion of Poland in WWII is stoking fears that the security alliance between Washington and Warsaw is weaker than the two governments have let on.

Volodymyr Tsemakh, an alleged separatist in the area where the Malaysian Airlines jet was shot down in 2014, was freed by a Kiev appeals court today pending further investigation.

Vladmir Putin (pictured) said he offered to 'balance everything out' by offering the Kremlin's weapons to Trump at the G20 summit in Japan in June.

Putin (pictured today) voted in Moscow elections which have taken on a rare significance after a series of candidates were detained and barred from the ballot, sparking mass protests.

The poll on Sunday suggests a tactical voting strategy pushed by opponents may have worked, in order to punish the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin's (pictured) ruling United Russia party.

The CIA pulled a spy with deep access inside the Kremlin out of Russia in 2017 because of leaks, and not because President Donald Trump had compromised the secret agent.

Oleg Smolenkov, the Kremlin aide named in Russia as the CIA's asset at the heart of Putin's regime tracks closely to a source described in the Steele dossier, claims Ilya Shumanov.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called a report Israel most likely spied on President Trump using devices that mimic cell towers a 'blatant lie.'

Sekinat Ibragimova was publicly shamed on TV for casting spells on Chechnya locals. Pro-Putin local ruler Ramzan Kadyrov had her detained and had her paraphernalia seized.

Russian president Vladimir Putin's goddaughter Ksenia Sobchak, 37, from Saint Petersburg, has wed her TV producer fiance theatre director Konstantin Bogomolov, 44.

Saudi Arabia saw half of its oil production blown up Saturday when a suspected drone attack damaged its largest oil refinery and an oil field, despite its state-of-the-art air defence systems.

Alexander 'Sasha' Gabyshev, 60, nicknamed the 'new Rasputin,' in reference to the crazed monk who took a malevolent hold over the last tsar of Russia, was halted in Siberia.

Emily Thornberry today accused Donald Trump of 'trying to tear freedom apart' as she demanded the end of the 'strongman era' of world politics.

Rudy Giuliani (left) has pulled out of a scheduled appearance at a Russia-backed trade conference which Vladimir Putin (right) and his top advisor, Sergev Glazyev (center), would also appear at.

'I think the paramount need here is to protect the national security of the United States,' Democrat Adam Schiff said on NBC's Meet the Press.

Asked about Democrats' push for the publication of Putin-Trump calls, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded that 'the publication is possible only on mutual accord.'

The WHO released the report on Tuesday that put a decrease in the country's alcohol consumption down to a raft of measures brought in under sport-loving President Vladimir Putin.

Siberian shaman Alexander 'Sasha' Gabyshev, 60, nicknamed the 'new Rasputin' has vowed to restart his two-year journey to 'exorcise' Vladimir Putin after he was arrested last month.

Conor McGregor (middle and right) has spoken about the bizarre time the bottle of whiskey he gave to Vladimir Putin (left) was removed by his security staff to check for poison.