Brian Barnes, a charismatic pipe-smoking English golfer who was best known for beating Jack Nicklaus twice in one day in Ryder Cup singles matches, died on Monday at his home in Virginia Water, England, southwest of London. He was 74.

The European Tour, which confirmed the death, said he had cancer.

A nine-time winner on the European Tour, Barnes — known for playing with a pipe in his mouth and a bottle of vodka and orange juice in his bag — was most famous for his two victories over Nicklaus at Laurel Valley Golf Club in Ligonier , Pa., in 1975, when the Ryder Cup was a contest between the United States and Britain and Ireland. (It now pits an American team against a European team.)

Barnes won in the morning singles, 4 and 2 (in match play, he was four strokes ahead with two holes to play), and Nicklaus asked the United States captain, Arnold Palmer, if he could play Barnes again in the afternoon. Bernard Hunt, Europe’s captain, agreed to a change in the draw, and Barnes won again, 2 and 1.

“The Americans couldn’t believe it,” said Bernard Gallacher , Barnes’s friend and Ryder Cup partner, “and they were all congratulating him saying they never thought anybody could beat Jack.”