Before the weekend was over, Casey was in the middle of a transatlantic storm and Colin Montgomerie's position as every drunk American golf fan's favourite European whipping boy looked precarious.
Much fine speechifying ensued as both sides tried to appeal to the American fund managers in the audience by whipping out competing sets of figures to demonstrate the shareholder value inherent in their proposals.
True, the Academy Awards do purport to honour excellence, but each year it becomes more of a grand American circus with stars, directors, publicists, studio executives and fans willingly whipping themselves into a frenzy.