Nicklaus: If you want to win the Ryder Cup, sack the boys in the backroom

Azinger, who will captain the US when they face Europe at Valhalla, near Louisville, Kentucky, in September, might have imagined he had picked the perfect back-room team when he named former captains Raymond Floyd and Dave Stockton, plus his tournament playing pal Olin Browne, as his assistants.

But when Azinger asked 68-year-old Nicklaus for advice on how to regain the Ryder Cup, which Europe have won five of the last six times, the message from the Golden Bear was not what he would have wished to hear.

While Azinger announced their appointment by declaring: "I'm going to lean on these guys," the response from Nicklaus was: "Get rid of 'em and just go with the guys who play golf!"

Nicklaus, in southern Spain last week to oversee progress on his £50 million signature golf course at Alhama, near Murcia, admitted: "Paul came to me and we talked quite a bit about what happened in the President's Cup, which we have won for the past three years when I have been captain.

"I told him it was more about what I didn't do. I thought 'I'm not going to tell these guys, who are all champions, how to play. Let them pick their matches and do what they want to do'. I think Paul will try to do something similar and, hopefully, get the team back on track.

"The Europeans have been very successful over the last 15 years. They have been very tough to beat and I think they'll be tough again. But I don't think the mentality of the American golfers is an issue.

"I'd just say to the guys 'Go out and enjoy it'. That was my message to them in the President's Cup and we didn't do so badly in that."

Nicklaus, who captained the US Ryder Cup team in the 1983 and 1987 matches, winning the former, admits that the Americans are "sick of getting beat".

But he believes that in Tiger Woods, they have a player capable of avenging their last two embarrassing defeats.

"Tiger doesn't lose often and he showed in the President's Cup what a tremendous influence and example he was to the rest of the team," said Nicklaus. "He's been terrific."

Although Nicklaus is resigned to Woods smashing his all-time best of 18 majors, he believes the half a dozen titles Tiger needs to go one better may take a few years yet.

"He's getting close but he is still some way away," he said. "It doesn't bother me in the least that he may do it eventually. Nobody wants their records broken but if it has to happen, I'd like it to be done by him."

As well as developing courses in Spain, Nicklaus is opening up new business interests in 55 other countries, including Russia.

"The mayor of Moscow wants to build 15 public courses around the city and he's hired us to be his consultants," he said. "He wants to do with golf what his country has done with tennis. It's exciting being part of that."