At the peak of the monsoon, the American quit the Open. Jacked it in, just like Sandy Lyle. Beem was 12-over for his front nine. He was wet and miserable and he'd had enough. Passed his card to his playing partners and said "guys, I'm fried, see ya later". There was no further comment. By the time the scribblers heard that he'd walked, Beem was at check-in at Liverpool airport. By the time somebody reached him on his mobile he was at home in the Texan sunshine. "I wouldn't have broken 90. What can I say? It was ugly."

There was no reaction to Beem's exit, no condemnatory words from the press, no online forums branding him a disgrace to golf. There wasn't any of that when Ian Poulter baled out of the US Open at Torrey Pines last month either. Poulter shot 78 in his opening round and, lo, suddenly his wrist hurt like hell. There were mutterings about the legitimacy of the injury but nobody went public. There was cynicism in the press tent and the calculations were made. Rubbish first round + brutal golf course = tendonitis and the next flight home. But nobody could write that. Poulter said he was hurt. We had to accept it.

Lyle could have said he was hurt, too. He could have spun a story about a tweak or a strain and everybody would have bought it. After all, the man had driven his ball into some evil places, had hacked and chopped out of the kind of terrain that wild animals would shy away from, the rain belting down on top of him all the while. Long grass to the left, gorse bushes to the right, cavernous bunkers. If Lyle had said "I'm injured" there wouldn't have been a soul in the world who would have disputed it. His pitiful travails on Birkdale's dark side were all too visible. There would have been sympathy on a grand scale if only he'd held his wrist or felt his knee or moved a little gingerly.

"It's the back, boys. Felt a pang. Couldn't risk it, could I." "Oh, you'd have been mad, Sandy." Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink.

You can't defend what Lyle did in walking off. He should have finished his round, that's a given. Others were having miserable experiences on that grim Thursday morning and all bar him and Beem ploughed on and finished the job. Lyle gave up and it was a lousy decision. But it seems that his biggest crime here is not that he chucked it but that he admitted chucking it. Beem didn't admit anything and he got away with it. No pious words for Rich. Poulter claimed he was injured at Torrey Pines and he got away with it too. Poor Ian and his tender wrist.

Lyle was honest and the worldwide press destroyed him. Called him daft for telling the truth. Told him he should have had the cop-on to invent an injury, thereby sparing himself the flood of criticism. All the time we bemoan the fact that so few sports people these days are candid and here is somebody who calls it like it is and he's pilloried for it. Too honest for his own good was the stock reaction. Would we have preferred to hear the lies?

The amount of sanctimony in the wake of Lyle's disappearing act was off the charts. It started in print and spilled on to the golf forums on the web.

"Sandy Lyle is an embarrassment to the UK" – Phil Sheeran

"He should be banned forever from events and from the Ryder Cup captaincy" – Gordon Robinson

"I have lost all respect for him" – Steve O'Reilly

"Ban him from all future Opens" – Brian Murray

A little perspective please. In the frenzy of flak it was said that Lyle's Ryder Cup captaincy aspirations are now buried because of his sharp exit.

Two things here: firstly, Lyle has little or no chance of getting the captaincy and he knows it and, secondly, even if he was in the hunt for Celtic Manor in 2010 (where he ought to lead the European team) then should one grim and ill-advised moment really destroy his prospects? We're talking about one of Britain's finest golfers in the modern age, a double major winner, a winner of the Players championship, a Ryder Cup stalwart, a man Seve Ballesteros says was the finest golfer of his generation, which happened to include some great champions. Because he threw the towel in on Thursday all that is forgotten?

We have short memories. Well, then, all the better to consign Lyle's so-called "disgrace" to the dustbin. If we can forgive Colin Montgomerie his strops (chances are he will be captain in 2014) then this overblown business with Lyle shouldn't bother us unduly. Golf should grow up and stop being so hypocritical and so damn po-faced.

Monty and Hyde
THE SCENES that greeted Colin Montgomerie on the first tee on Friday were – and I use the word advisedly – extraordinary. There was a gauntlet of support for the Scot. Men in kilts, men in Monty tee-shirts, one man with a Saltire attached to an umbrella raised high to the skies. In scenes that conjured up memories of St Andrews and the anticipation of his joust with Tiger Woods in the final round of the 2005 Open championship, Monty was The Man again.

And how he loved it. He soaked it up while Boo Weekley, his playing partner, just chuckled. "This is craaazy, Colin," said Boo. "It's great, isn't it?" grinned Monty.

The feelgood didn't last. You knew it wouldn't. Monty dropped seven shots in four cataclysmic holes and started snapping again. A television cameraman got it. A ball spotter got it. A marshal got it. The Monty growl was cutting loose. I asked a rules official at one point had he got in the firing line himself.

"Not yet," he said. "But he's picking us off one by one."

The warmth he received from the crowd was not lost on the big man. But he should think about it. He should ask himself why they embraced him so completely, this largely English gallery.

And then he should ask himself if he treats them in the same wholeheartedly generous way they treat him. You'd like to think he'll ponder that one some time.