Once more it falls to Ireland to produce the baby of the contest in 18-year-old Rory McIlroy. He is expected to be just as inspirational as Jimmy Bruen was at the same age in 1938 when he fired the engines of the home side for a rare win at St Andrews.

McIlroy's near neighbour Ronan Rafferty was just 17 when he played in 1981 and he was the youngest ever to play in the Walker Cup until Justin Rose came along as a 16-year-old in 1997. Rose was then displaced in turn by a player one month and 10 days his junior . . . Oliver Fisher in 2005.

Now it is all youth and there will likely be a few major champions of the future lurking amongst the players and affording the spectators a great opportunity to walk alongside them, even have a chat with them between games. They will then forever be able to boast that they had done so and known, just known, that the young stars were going to be great!

When the Walker Cup was played at Portmarnock in 1991 . . . the only other time it was staged in this country . . .there were three major championship winners of the future involved.

Phil Mickelson created quite a stir with his lefthanded brilliance but also with his ill-judged remarks about the lack of pulchritude amongst local Irish girls. David Duval passed almost unnoticed and Padraig Harrington was the home hero along with Paul McGinley.

Admittedly, that was a vintage year for stars of the future. Since then we have had only Justin Leonard and Tiger Woods emerge from the Walker Cup scene to become major winners in the way that fellows like Johnny Miller, Tom Kite, Craig Stadler and others like Jack Nicklaus had done in a previous era. But the pattern is established and remains relentless as most of the future greats from the northern hemisphere pass through the Walker Cup gateway.

There is a point to be made, of course. The Walker Cup does not showcase all of the best amateurs in the world. Australia, South Africa, South America, Canada and the east are not represented. Even the mainland European nations are not there as they are in the Ryder Cup.

The inclusion of players from Europe was being considered as a possibility when the USA won the first 12 matches played after the second world war, lost to a home team inspired by Roddy Carr at St Andrews in 1971, and then won the next eight matches as well. Talk about one-sided.

But the story has been very different ever since Eoghan O'Connell played a vital part in a shock British & Irish win at Peachtree in 1989. It was as though the American confidence balloon had been burst on the spot.

Or maybe it has had everything to do with the fact that the affair has transformed totally from a biennial meeting of career amateurs into a battle between aspiring young professionals wherein reputations are there for no other reason than to be attacked.

In any case, the Walker Cup has been a great contest ever since.

Both sides have won four of the last eight matches.

Amazingly, Britain & Ireland won three in a row from 1999 under the leadership of two of the greatest team captains of all-time, Peter McEvoy and Garth McGimpsey, and everyone now knows that there is a game on when the sides meet.

With McIlroy and Jonathan Caldwell, still thrilling from their part in Ireland's win in the European Amateur Team Championship at Western Gailes, assuring a massive turnout of Ulster fans the home side will not be wanting for spectator support. In fact, the R&A this week indicated that only a limited number of tickets remain available because they are confining the attendance to ensure that the galleries will be manageable around the most popular matches.

The British & Irish team has been selected. Eight of the Americans have been named and the remaining two will be announced following the conclusion of the US Amateur Championship at the Olympic club in San Francisco this weekend.

Already it is known that the two latecomers will be young as the five Americans to reach the quarter-finals of that event were aged 20 to 23 and they were trying to deal with a 15-year-old Chinese golfer to save their national face.

In the meantime, one wonders whether or when the Walker Cup will become an all-teens affair as one studies the amazing age-line of the 2007 event.

18Rory McIlroy (GB&I) 19Jamie Lovemark (USA), Daniel Willett (GB&I) 20Billy Horschel (USA), John Parry (GB&I) 21Webb Simpson (USA) 22Chris Kirk (USA), Colt Knost (USA), Jonathan Moore (USA), Rhys Davies (GB&I) , David Horsey (GB&I), Jamie Moul (GB&I) 23Dustin Johnson (USA), Jonathan Caldwell (GB&I) , Llewellyn Matthews (GB&I) 24Lloyd Saltman (GB&I) 35Trip Kuehne (USA) 38Nigel Edwards (GB&I)