Jacklin had taken on the captaincy in 1983 not knowing whether Europe’s star player – Masters champion at the time – would agree to play against the Americans.

But at the end of a meeting when Ballesteros, not selected two years earlier in a row over appearance money, had given full vent to his feelings, he gave his answer.

“Okay, I will try to help you,” said the man who then inspired Europe to a run of success that has now seen them lift the cup in nine of the last 13 matches.

Jacklin admits he did not know Ballesteros that well before they met at Birkdale that summer 28 years ago, but he certainly knew the importance of him.

“The Ryder Cup was a turning point for a lot of things and the significance of his involvement was unbelievable,” he said.

“I find people get amnesia about things, especially people around the European Tour, but he was actually banned from it in 1981.

“I don’t think they ever really gave him the support that his talent required. It was an incredible opportunity for the Tour – he was Tiger Woods before Tiger Woods. He had it all.

“Like everything with a talent like that it’s not all plain sailing when you are trying to work with an organisation and he was angry.

“It was John Jacobs (captain), Neil Coles (Tour chairman) and Bernhard Langer who were on the committee at the time, but in fairness to Langer I think he was only co-opted to give it player credibility.

“So in their wisdom they banned him and I was in a similar situation. I was left out as well from the 1981 team.

“It wasn’t until the April of ’83 (six months before the match in Florida) that they came to me about becoming captain.

“I was able to say I was only going to do it if we levelled the playing field and that meant Concorde, taking caddies and having the best of everything, as our opposition had.

“Once I accepted my first question to Lord Derby (president of the PGA at the time) was ’What about Seve?’ and he told me that now I had accepted he was my problem.”

Jacklin knew the impact that the mercurial Spaniard could have on his European side, who went on to lose by just a point in Florida.

“I knew I couldn’t do it without him, so we met. He felt slighted and hurt by what had happened – and boy was he angry,” he said.

“He spent the first half of the meeting telling me what a shower they were, so of course I agreed with all that, but then I told him that they’d given me all the power to do whatever I thought was required.

“I said ’I can’t do it without you and it’s as simple as that – as far as I’m concerned you’re the best player in the world.’

“I think he had the same opinion as me that the Americans weren’t any better than us given a level playing field, so he agreed to come on board and by God did he help.

“He was a one-man army and he was just as good off the course as he was on it. He was about the only one that I ran anything by in terms of pairings.

“I’ve only met two people in my life with such charisma. One was Arnold (Palmer) and the other was Seve.”