There are amateur golfers and there are amateur golfers. And by amateur golfers in the first instance, I mean really amateurish golfers, as in the crude, clouting type who uncoil the kind of gasp-inducing swing that possesses all the poise, rhythm and timing of the Keystone Cops trying to perform the Dashing White Sergeant while wildly swiping away with the flustered, grunting intent of a startled farmhand thrashing at a scurrying rat with a rake. Sound wearily familiar? Yes, I thought so.

At Royal Lytham this coming weekend, it’s those other amateur golfers – the ones who play this game with the smooth gracefulness of a swan drifting on a tranquil boating pond – who will be showing us all just how to do it as Great Britain & Ireland take on the USA in the Walker Cup.

Long before the invention of high-fives, fist-pumps, infuriatingly long committee meetings over each shot in the foursomes format and do-or-die rallying cries that are now par for the course in team golf, the Walker Cup was a genteel occasion designed to “foster international goodwill between the US and Great Britain & Ireland.”

To this day, it still remains a cornerstone of the amateur ideal and is, for those fortunate to have witnessed one at close quarters, a truly enthralling showpiece. The opportunity to get a keek into golf’s future adds to the abundant charms of the event while highlighting just how fickle this game can be. For every Jordan Spieth, a Walker Cup campaigner just four years ago at Royal Aberdeen and now a double major champion, there are countless ‘stars in the making’ who have since drifted into the backwaters of professional golf after making the plunge following a Walker Cup appearance.

In the wake of a memorable Open Championship at St Andrews, when a host of players from the unpaid ranks conjured more amateur dramatics than the Panto season, there will be a few familiar faces on parade. Paul Dunne, the plucky Irishman who was sharing the lead going into the final round of the Open, lines up for GB&I while Jordan Niebrugge, who eventually claimed the silver medal after a tie for sixth at St Andrews, leads a US side that already has something of an edge when it comes to glamorous, showbiz style names. Bryson DeChambeau, Maverick McNealy, Beau Hossler? They could be on the end credits of a movie about the old west. Even the skipper, John Miller, goes by the moniker of ‘Spider’. It will be up to our 'Nige' – GB&I team captain Nigel Edwards – and his posse of honest Jacks, Pauls, Jimmys and Gavins to throw a star spangled spanner into the American works during this two-day shoot-out and make up for the 17-9 thumping the US dished out in 2013.

Of the 10-men in the US side, eight of them are aged between 19 and 22. The remaining two, Scott Harvey and Mike McCoy, are 37 and 52 respectively. The oldest player in the GB&I side is European champion, Ashley Chesters, who is 26. In these reach-for-the-stars times, when the amateur to professional turnover has never been greater and, you could argue, more reckless, the decision by the United States Golfing Association (USGA) a couple of years ago to reserve two places in future teams for mid-amateur golfers – those aged 25 and over who tend to work full-time - remains an interesting development.

It's certainly a nod to the more traditional values of the contest; an opportunity for career amateurs to reach the very pinnacle of their sport at a time when the amateur game at the top level is dictated by world ranking points and is almost a closed shop for those who are not young, full-time, professionals in waiting.

The aforementioned McCoy, ranked 212 on the global order, and Harvey, who sits at No 109, are both former US Mid-Amateur champions and are the two lowest ranked players on either side. Given the strength in depth of the American amateur scene, which is forged in the highly competitive arena of the US college circuit, the battle for places in a Walker Cup side is always fierce. By chiselling down a rule that states the team must have a quota of two mid-amateurs, the USGA top brass have made a brave move. Is this the strongest team they can possibly muster? Well, no ...but it didn't do them any harm two years ago.

“Everyone wants to win, but it's also about what Mr Walker had in mind to begin with,” said former US team captain, Jim Holtgrieve, when the new mid-amateur rule was introduced in 2013.

That may all sound rather dewy-eyed and nostalgic in these win-at-all-cost times. But as the increasing professionalism of the amateur game continues, the boundaries become ever more blurred and the conveyor belt of young players rolling into the pro game clanks and churns away on an industrial scale, is there anything wrong with harking back to a more traditional approach in this most cherished of golfing contests?