Like their predecessors, both men have stressed that the players hit the shots, however, the notion of a captain delivering a few ceremonial speeches drafted by someone else, planning the dinner menus and checking the temperature of the showers was obsolete even before Tony Jacklin redefined the role.

As recently as 1999 at Brookline, when all had looked lost, a dazed Ben Crenshaw somehow found a way to inspire his team before the decisive singles, while Mark James paid a heavy price for holding three of his rookies back until the final confrontation. Jarmo Sandelin, Jean Van de Velde and Andrew Coltart were sacrificed at the altar of poor judgement, and Europe were beaten by a point.

Two years ago, Hal Sutton's masterplan of pairing Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson together was at the bottom of a rubbish bin by the end of the first day. Then when Sutton bizarrely acceded to Chris Riley's request to be rested on the Saturday afternoon . . . the apparently fatigued Riley had just won his fourballs match with Woods . . . the game was up.

Try selling the theory that captaincy doesn't count during the 10 and a bit weeks between now and the start of Ireland's Ryder Cup on 22 September.

Not that Woosnam hasn't been poring over Europe's two qualifying lists, and not that he hasn't been tricking around with combinations in his head, but he is emerging as a captain who will act more on instinct than anything else.

He mentioned that he would be putting his arm around Paul McGinley, whose bid for inclusion has stalled alarmingly, and telling him to keep on doing what he has been doing. The human touch might have helped given McGinley's impressive 67 in yesterday's third round of the European Open, but the fact that he made the cut following yet more mediocre form had more to do with luck than anything else.

While Lehman hosted a barbecue before the Wachovia Championship in North Carolina in early May at which 40 of America's top 50 players listened to an impassioned speech about the importance of the Ryder Cup, Woosnam has either found it difficult because of scheduling, or has not really seen the need to gather his leading lights around him.

The aim was to have a "couple of beers and a chat" at some stage during this week's Smurfit Kappa European Open.

It could be that Woosnam has been walking the boards devising motivational strategies, however, that doesn't appear to be his style. In the end, he might be a captain who prefers to let his team do the talking. Lehman has already shown himself to be different, more confessional about his preparation, his influences, his hopes and his fears for the event.

To borrow from Abraham Lincoln, who is one of the American captain's inspirations, if Woosnam and Lehman were each given eight hours to cut down a tree, Woosnam might just get stuck in immediately while Lehman would probably spend six hours sharpening his axe.

He is sitting in front of the Smurfit Course's clubhouse, little more than a good Tiger Woods drive from where he and his players will attempt to restore a competitive reputation which was left in tatters following America's record defeat at Oakland Hills. A balding 47-year-old with a touch of jet lag and a WWJD (What would Jesus do) band on his wrist, Tom Lehman is insisting that the Ryder Cup has to be fun. You heard him, one of the most nerve-tingling, sphincterloosening experiences in sport should be fun.

"It seems like our team are scared to death once they go between the ropes at the Ryder Cup. On the 16th hole with a seven iron, am I going to enjoy that shot, or am I going to be afraid of that shot? As a kid you grow up dreaming about that shot.

You're at your own little club in Alexander, Minnesota or Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and you're at the Masters, the Ryder Cup or the US Open, and you dream of the chance of hitting that shot. That's what I'm talking about, the fun, the thrill of actually hitting that shot."

No fun, no success, he says now, but he needed to find a way to change his players' perspective, and to that end he sought out a man called John Wooden. A 95year-old legend in the US coaching firmament, Wooden guided UCLA to 10 national collegiate basketball championships in the space of 12 seasons between 1964 and 1975, and he told Lehman that hard graft on its own wasn't enough.

"Wooden explained what he saw as the characteristics of great teams. He said players had to work alright, but they had to love what they were doing. If you don't love it, you might as well not do it.

So, I'm trying to bring a sense of fun back to America's Ryder Cup."

If his players are to be more relaxed, he wants them to have attitude in his own image. Lehman might have won the British Open, and he might have risen to number one in the world rankings, but he was a late developer, someone for whom success never came easy.

He had played in three Ryder Cups in a row, never lost a singles match, but when he missed automatic qualification by one place in 2001, Curtis Strange still didn't pick him. "I would've picked me, " he says, "I think I could've got him [Strange] a few points. I still feel hurt by that."

With Payne Stewart's passing, with Paul Azinger's decline, with Lehman himself outside the ropes, and with Chris DiMarco currently off the pace, he is looking for attitude from the likes of Vaughn Taylor, a tough competitor who grew up on the municipal courses around Augusta. "My own career was a bit that way, " he adds.

And by the way, he believes experience is overrated. With five rookies, aka faceless American pros JJ Henry, Zach Johnson, Brett Wetterich, Lucas Glover and Taylor in his team at the moment, he would say that wouldn't he?"If your experience has been a bad experience then it hurts, so sometimes having no experience is better than a bad experience."

At the 1994 Masters, Lehman had his first taste of contending in a major championship. He led going into the final round, but eventually lost by two strokes to Jose Maria Olazabal who will again be an adversary at the K Club this September. "The course was fast, the greens were like rocks, and I shot even par. So with a little more experience I could possibly have won, but without any experience I sure performed well. So I don't think there's a reason why our guys can't perform well with very little experience.

"Matchplay is a matter of the heart more than anything else. The reason I like our young guys is that if you ask their coaches or any of the people around them what is their strongest asset, almost to a person they'll tell you they've got a big heart. You know what, if they've got a big heart, they're walking on my team."

He is less certain about what role Woods will play. In the aftermath of his father's death, and clearly disconnected in the past from the cut and thrust of the Ryder Cup, Woods has never led from the front. "Colin Montgomerie is Europe's leader because he is so strong in his beliefs about the Ryder Cup, " says Lehman. "He is always vocal about how much he loves it, whereas Tiger is a much more private person.

But that doesn't mean that behind closed doors he can't be that kind of leader as well."

If Woods remains enigmatic, Lehman believes he has a good understanding of Phil Mickelson and already has designs on pairing him with David Toms. "You put Phil with somebody who hits it all over the park or forces him to play more conservatively, and that's not Phil. He's at his best when he's able to go for it. But you put him with a guy like David Toms who is really steady, and you free Phil up to be a star. Then he's going to give you a lot."

Lehman is giving this Ryder Cup a lot too. Whether it's trawling through the history of the American Civil War looking for nuggets of inspiration, or firing up his players in advance, there is a sense of a man on a mission, someone already consumed by the event. He bristles for a moment when asked if Europe wanted to win more at Oakland Hills, if the Americans didn't care enough. "I can't really answer that, but as for me, I know that I'm not that way. I feel pretty certain I could match any European's passion for the Ryder Cup.

And as the captain, it's my job to make sure that all the players have that passion as well."

It won't be for want of trying.