Rolling back the years, turning back the clock, stepping back in time? Whatever you want to call it, Craig Watson will be doing it at the Amateur Championship this week. It is 10 years since Watson last played in the unpaid game’s blue riband event and 20 since he won it. That triumph came at Royal St George’s and Watson will return to the scene of that conquest with the redoubtable Sandwich links once again hosting the six-day showpiece.

It is a big year for the canny, easy going East Renfrewshire member, who approaches life with the kind of laid back air you would tend to get with a jazz quartet on Valium. Later this season, the 50-year-old will captain GB&I in the Walker Cup against the US in Los Angeles as the visitors attempt to win for just the third time on American soil.

Two decades ago, Watson was part of the GB&I side that lost 18-6 to the US at Quaker Ridge. Being part of that side had “never been on my radar” but all that changed when Watson landed the Amateur Championship crown with a 3&2 win over a teenage Trevor Immelman, who would go on to win the Masters in 2008. “Given that Trevor’s got a green jacket, I don’t suppose he wakes up every morning saying ‘I wish I’d won that final’,” said Watson with a wry grin.

The memories of that St George’s success are still fresh in the mind. Watson had squeezed into the matchplay stages on the qualifying cut mark but it was onwards and upwards after that.

“I got lucky with the draw,” said Watson in his usual self-deprecating way. “In the second round I was due to play the top seed but he got beat. Everybody I played, I knew. I played Graham Fox, David Patrick, James Clive. It was mostly Scottish boys and it was quite nice and friendly. It wasn’t a step into the unknown with some international boy wondering if he was any good or not.

“I got to the last eight and I was set to play Barclay Howard in the semis if we both won. Now Barclay would beat me eight out of 10 times and the two times I would beat him I would’ve had to play out of my boots. But Barclay lost and I ended up playing Colin Edwards, an English guy, who I knew well. Colin was a lovely guy but he wasn’t Barclay. So that was me in the final.”

Immelman was a precocious talent. He was also a tad cocky. The story goes that prior to the final he had made a less than private phone call home to South Africa and signed off with the words, “I’ll ring back after I’ve won.” The then 17-year-old was certainly on course to do that and Watson had to hole a 15-footer on the 18th green of the morning session just to stay two down.

“It was flat calm and Immelman was just toying with me,” recalled Watson. “But then the wind got up and it was perfect for me. In the afternoon I had 15 pars and a just one bogey in the wind and ended up winning 3&2.”

The celebrations could begin. Well, not quite. “I had to drive up the road and I was taking Barclay home,” said Watson of this arduous hike from the deepest reaches of Kent. “I dropped him off in Johnstone at 3am.”

His travel arrangements for the Walker Cup a couple of months later were a trifle more salubrious. “We had business class flights, the lot, it was fantastic,” he said. “We lost 18-6 but that didn’t take away from a fantastic week. I never look back and think ‘I wish we won’.

"As a captain, I want the players to savour the experience. It’s not a holiday by any means but you have to enjoy it. Playing in the Walker Cup was wonderful. Now, being the GB&I captain is the biggest honour for an amateur golfer.”

Being a winning captain wouldn’t be a bad way for Watson to sign off this anniversary year.