Sam Burns

His Open Championship debut at Royal St George's came a week before his 25th birthday and two months after his maiden PGA Tour victory at the Valspar Championship, where a second-round 63 helped him to a three-stroke win.

He followed that up with a runner-up finish at the AT&T Byron Nelson and lost a play-off to Abraham Ancer at August’s WGC-FedEx St Jude Invitational before winning the Sanderson Farms Championship two months later.

A climb into the world’s top 10 came soon after that and he moved back there with a successful defence of the Valspar in March before adding the Charles Schwab Challenge with a seven-shot last-day comeback and play-off win over then-world No.1 Scottie Scheffler.

Burns overcame Scheffler again in the semi-finals of March’s WGC-Dell Match Play and then defeated Cameron Young, runner-up in The 150th Open at St Andrews, to take the title.

Played in the Junior Ryder Cup in 2014 – Young was a teammate - and in 2017 won the Jack Nicklaus award as the top college player in America.

Made his Presidents Cup debut in September, qualifying in fourth place and partnering Scheffler in the first three sessions as America won by five points.