The art of leadership when it comes to team golf is either something to be forensically scrutinised, or a myth that has been blown way out of proportion by the attention heaped on the Ryder Cup, which, by the way, will be upon us again in just less than a year.

Whether it was a benevolent Jack Nicklaus shrugging his shoulders at the Presidents Cup and letting the players get on with it, or an enthusiastic Seve Ballesteros proving the theory of bi-location at the Seve Trophy, or Nick Faldo flunking his first test of man-management by falling out with Paul McGinley, the focus was on the captains.

If no one had a negative word to say about Nicklaus's stewardship . . . "The notion that you can't get 12 multimillionaires to agree on anything is shattered every two years when the Americans discuss Jack Nicklaus, " was how Golf Digest's wry commentator, Bob Verdi, summed up events at Montreal . . . there is hardly ever unanimity about someone as mercurial as Ballesteros.

Even if his team was defeated by a resurgent Britain on the final day, Ballesteros was certainly of the opinion that he had done a great job, and he went as far as to declare his hand for the Ryder Cup captaincy in the future, fully 10 years after insisting that the matches against the USA at Valderrama were to be his one and only throw of the dice.

"In life, you say certain things and then change your mind, " he explained. "I have learned a lot of things, I know how to treat players, how to make the team play together, how to keep everybody happy.

I have a very good relationship with the players."

In the wake of Ballesteros's subsequent verbal assault on Padraig Harrington, who had opted out of the matches at The Heritage due to a combination of fatigue and injury, his ties with the players might not be as strong as he believes. If the Spaniard had said he was disappointed with the British Open champion's decision to withdraw and had left it at that, he would have made his point. But to effectively accuse Harrington of being selfish and unpatriotic was outrageous.

Anyway, it wasn't as if he had come through Europe's 1997 victory with his reputation as a captain intact. Both Darren Clarke and Ian Woosnam were understandably frustrated at being benched for both the fourballs and the foursomes on the opening day, but what really got them in a lather was the fact that Ballesteros never bothered to explain his decision. Equally, Colin Montgomerie was none too impressed by Ballesteros's intrusive style on the course as if he had a mind to play every shot himself.

As for Faldo, who succeeded in bungling his choice of Seve Trophy wild cards and lost his Ryder Cup vice-captain McGinley in the process, there was a win over Continental Europe at The Heritage to help defuse the controversy, as well as an endorsement of his leadership style from Paul Casey.

Apart from the McGinley fiasco, there was a large question mark over Faldo's decision to put his highest-ranked player out in the last singles game on Sunday. With Europe leading by a point, there was a distinct possibility that Rose might not have been able to influence the outcome in the way that Tiger Woods was powerless to prevent the USA from defeat at the Belfry in 2002 after he had been sent out last by Curtis Strange.

Once described by his second wife Gill as "socially a 24handicapper", Faldo has clearly mellowed in the meantime, but he still looked somewhat uncomfortable in the captaincy role. He had clearly made his mind up about pairings and orders, and there was to be no consultation, not even with the vastly-experienced Montgomerie.

"We ate together at night and we had chats, " the Scot revealed, "but there were no chats about team selection."

That was in direct contrast to how Nicklaus handled affairs at the Presidents Cup where the American players were regularly consulted by their veteran captain. "To say you played for Jack Nicklaus, they can't take that away from you. He says something to you, and you listen, " said Stewart Cink. "It's special.

And you'll find yourself thinking that you'll do anything to win for him because of what he means."

But if the Nicklaus aura was part of the USA's winning formula, he also appeared to create a wholly different atmosphere to that which has stifled recent Ryder Cup teams. "Jack had something to do with that, " said Phil Mickelson. "We knew who we were going to get paired with, and we were able to practise and figure out what to do at each hole."

The Mickelson view was backed up by Scott Verplank who also sensed a change from the overweening tension of the Ryder Cup. "Jack was very much, 'Guys, do what you want to do, have a great time, tell me who you want to play with.' I hadn't noticed it being that simple at the Ryder Cup."

However, for all the praise deservedly heaped on Nicklaus, there are two factors which differentiate the Presidents Cup from the Ryder Cup. Firstly, if the Seve Trophy is positively non-alcoholic, the Presidents Cup is Ryder Cup Lite. "It's not a life or death situation, " said Mark O'Meara once, "but so much is made of the Ryder Cup that a lot of US players put too much pressure on themselves and don't perform to the level they're capable of performing."

For Jim Furyk, who has had equal experience of Presidents Cup success and Ryder Cup desolation, there is something indefinable about what the Ryder Cup does to a player. "I go to the Ryder Cup thinking I'm going to loosen up and enjoy the week . . . and I'm always a little bit tighter."

Secondly, the Americans were almost certainly more upbeat at the Presidents Cup for the simple reason that they were winning, and it's just possible that the only time the captaincy truly becomes an issue is when a team is losing.

In the build-up to the matches at the K Club, it seemed as if Tom Lehman was panning out as the most organised and visionary American captain in history, and it seemed as if his counterpart, Ian Woosnam, was stumbling from mini-crisis to mini-crisis. Yet we all know what happened.

The approach for Paul Azinger, who goes up against Faldo in Kentucky next year, might be to attempt to recreate the more relaxed atmosphere of the Presidents Cup in order to prevent a record fourth defeat in succession for the USA. But then, it's difficult to envisage the intense Azinger following Nicklaus's hands-off example.

In the end, as Eamonn Darcy said a few years ago, there's probably too much emphasis on the captaincy anyway. "The players are there and if they don't do the work and play well, it doesn't matter if you have God Almighty as captain. You're not going to win."

Darcy might just have it right, however, in roughly a year's time when Azinger and Faldo are butting heads, we'll probably have forgotten his words of wisdom.