As the 2017 Walker Cup starts this weekend with Paul McBride representing Ireland on the GB&I team, he will be following in the footsteps of some of the greatest to ever play the game.

The US team for the first ever match in 1922 contained such luminaries as Francis Ouimet and the greatest amateur of them all in Bobby Jones.

Since then, the likes of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Jack Nicklaus and Pádraig Harrington have played in the competition, yet no year’s alumni may top the 2007 Walker Cup, played on the hallowed links of Royal County Down.

In basketball, they refer to ‘The Dream Team’, when talking about the multi-talented 1992 US Olympic team that destroyed all in their path in the Barcelona Olympics.

Well the teams from the Walker Cup ten years ago may have similar claims. Between them, they have won 73 PGA or European Tour events, seven majors, seven WGCs, two Fed Ex Cups and one Players Championship. This is despite the fact that most of those players are either just below or above 30.

The players on the US team have earned over $157m dollars in that time. The two main stars to come from the team were Rickie Fowler and World Number 1 Dustin Johnson, but it also included successful PGA Tour professionals Billy Horschel, Kyle Stanley, Webb Simpson and Chris Kirk.

The star of the GB&I team that week was none other than Rory McIlroy, the then Silver Medal winner, which he won at The Open at Carnoustie. Peter McEvoy had revealed his embarrassment at leaving out Rory for the 2005 Walker Cup, and this was his time to make amends.

McIlroy’s amateur achievements to then included back-to-back West of Ireland and Irish Close Championships in 2005 and 2006, as well as the European Amateur Championship in 2006, all before he turned 18 years old.

Also included on the European team was four-time European Tour winner David Horsey and 2016 Masters champion Danny Willett. As well as Rory McIlroy, Clandeboye’s Jonathan Caldwell played in the 2007 matches.

With America’s Billy Horschel seen playfully messing around with Rory at the recent WGC Bridgestone Invitational, one could be forgiven for forgetting the angry altercation between the two at that Walker Cup. When playing with Fowler against McIlroy and Caldwell, Horschel sprinted across the 14^th green, screaming “Yeah, baby!” at his ball. Lawrence Donegan, writing in The Guardian, said of Horschel’s on-course demeanour, which was “only a cowboy hat short of Clint Eastwood.”

When McIlroy beat Horschel in a singles match, he said: “It was great to win. Especially against him. I don’t really have much time for him.

“He wasn’t a nice guy to be around. He was using gamesmanship and stuff and it was just ridiculous.”

Horschel and McIlroy have since made up and are on good terms now, and McIlroy’s friendly rivalry with Fowler has endured from battling against each other in the 2014 PGA Championship final day to the Ryder Cup singles match that year.

Interestingly, it was Fowler’s impression of the links at Royal County Down that inspired him to play in the 2015 Dubai Duty Free Irish Open, which was a major coup for the event.

The most decorated member of that US team is now the 15-time PGA Tour winner Dustin Johnson, but a lot of the hype that week had been about the then 19-year-old Jamie Lovemark, who has since suffered from a number of injuries and is yet to win on the PGA Tour, although he has established himself in the top 100 of the world.

The matches were won in by another player whose amateur success did not translate to professional success, Jonathan Moore, who hit his approach shot to 3 feet on 18 to seal the 12 ½ to 11 ½ victory for the United States. Unlike his illustrious teammates, Moore never made it on tour, showing the volatility of the move from the amateur to the professional game.