Mark Hugh James (born 28 October 1953) is an English professional golfer who had a long career on the European Tour and captained Europe in the 1999 Ryder Cup. He has also played senior golf on the European Senior Tour and the U.S.-based Champions Tour. Early life and amateur career James was born in Manchester, England and educated at Stamford School. He won the English Amateur championship at Woodhall Spa in 1974 and was a member of the Great Britain & Ireland 1975 Walker Cup team. Professional career European Tour His first professional win was the 1977 Lusaka Open and the following year he picked up the first of his eighteen wins on the European Tour at the Sun Alliance Match Play Championship. He also holds the record for the highest European Tour event 18-hole-round of 111 strokes at the 1978 Italian Open in Sardinia, when refusing to with-draw despite an injury. Four years later he won the same tournament. James never won a major championship, but he had four top-five finishes at The Open Championship. He was consistently competitive on the European Tour winning 12 times with 20 top-30 finishes on the Order of Merit, including seven top-10 finishes, the best of them third place in 1979. He was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2000, but after treatment began playing golf again in 2001. Ryder Cup James represented Great Britain & Ireland or Europe in the Ryder Cup seven times including 1989 when Europe tied the match and retained the cup they had won in 1987, and 1995 when they won it outright. He was the European captain in the controversial "Battle of Brookline" in 1999, when the behaviour of the American galleries and team created a great deal of resentment in Europe, and also James' own actions during the matches drew fire from both sides of the Atlantic. Prior to the event, James controversially chose Andrew Coltart as his second captain's pick on the team, thus leaving out Nick Faldo and Bernhard Langer (veterans who were the two most successful players for the European team in Ryder Cup history). In one of the most discussed moves in the Ryder Cup, James then kept Jean van de Velde, Jarmo Sandelin and Coltart on the bench during all sixteen matches during the first two days of play, relegating them to singles matches on Sunday only. His refusal to play those