Air travel eh? If there’s one thing that can temper the frankly terrifying thought of being packed inside a metal tube and propelled 35,000 feet into the air for 10 hours, then it’s the soothing prospect of turning left when boarding and wallowing in the attentive, "allow me to top up your Moet & Chandon" opulence of business class. Of course, most of we mere mortals shuffle off right and watch the separating curtain being whipped shut as we shoehorn ourselves in among the goats, hens and hay bales of down-trodden, knee-crushing misery-class.

It’s almost 20 years now since Craig Watson played in the Walker Cup but the newly appointed Great Britain & Ireland captain for next year’s match in Los Angeles has still not forgotten the lap of luxury he landed in back in 1997. “It was brilliant,” recalled the East Renfrewshire honorary member as he reflected on that no-expense spared trip to Quaker Ridge for the contest with the USA. “I always laugh when I speak to my old Scotland team-mate David Patrick about the Walker Cup. I played one in the US and he played one here at Nairn. I say to him ‘David, what would you rather do? Get business class over to Baltimore, play a great course there for four days and then get two private jets up to New York and lose 18-6 … or would you like to drive yourself up the A9 to Nairn and win?’”

Watson’s journey to the 1997 Walker Cup may have ended in a heavy defeat but he was simply delighted to be there. Prior to winning that year’s Amateur Championship – his victory over future Masters champion Trevor Immelman at Sandwich thrust him into the team - the biennial battle was never really on his radar. Two decades on, the captaincy wasn’t either. “I was slightly taken aback,” added the 49-year-old, who enjoyed a successful spell as Scotland captain and has taken over the GB&I duties from the popular Welshman Nigel Edwards. “I got a phone call in November about it and I thought it was just to be part of a selection committee. Then Martin Slumbers (the R&A’s chief executive) called last month and asked me to be captain. It’s massive for me, the biggest job I’ve ever done in golf. One thing I learned from being Scotland captain is how clever a golfer I am when I’m not actually playing. This is certainly up there with anything I have achieved as a player. I was 31 when I played in the Walker Cup. I’d never been in a position to make it but it was thrust upon me when I won the Amateur and I thought I’d never get the chance again.”

A true career amateur, Watson never harboured any professional ambitions. “I didn’t hit it far enough or straight enough and I never putted well enough but apart from that I was ok,” he said with his trademark self-deprecation that’s as dry as a mouthful of sawdust. He is well aware of the changing face of the unpaid game and the relentless migration of players to the pro ranks. Prior to his GB&I appointment, and the fact that Edwards had three terms as skipper as opposed to the traditional two, the suggestion that the R&A may have to look to professionals with Walker Cup backgrounds for future captains became a topic of discussion in the golfing steamie. “They may have to start thinking about that,” said Watson of an issue that has seen the names of Padraig Harrington and Sandy Lyle flung into the debating pot “If you go back to my Walker Cup, I’m maybe the only one who is still an amateur. You’ll be lucky to find any career amateurs left from matches after that. The last time I played for Scotland in the 2003 Home Internationals, just about the whole team were full time workers. That won’t happen again.”

From the days when the Walker Cup was often as lop-sided as Long John Silver after a bottle of rum and the US dominance led to the event being re-christened the Walkover Cup, the transatlantic tussle is now a fairly evenly fought affair. In the nine matches played since Watson’s appearance in 1997, GB&I have five wins to the USA’s four. The GB&I boys have won only once on American soil in that time, at Sea Island in 2001. Indeed, they’ve only won twice away from home since the match was inaugurated in 1922. “We are more than holding our own these days and winning out there would be huge,” he said.

And what about the prospect of more lavish, luxurious travel arrangements in 2017? “If I’m a rubbish captain, I might be flying back in the hold,” he chuckled.