Means again in 2007, a bunch of promising American newbie golfers joined forces to create what might need been the “finest ever” Walker Cup staff in historical past, at the least in keeping with GOLF’s Subpar co-host Colt Knost.
The biennial Walker Cup is a Ryder Cup-style occasion pitting the very best American amateurs towards the highest ams from Nice Britain and Eire. And most of the recreation’s biggest execs performed within the long-running occasion throughout their rise within the recreation.
However the 2007 staff was completely loaded, that includes a full roster of sticks, most of whom would go on to star on the PGA Tour. A minimum of to this point, none of their careers have panned out fairly in addition to World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who was a member of the staff.
He was joined by present Tour execs Will Zalatoris, Maverick McNealy, Cameron Champ, Doug Ghim and Norman Xiong, to call a number of. That 12 months’s staff trounced the competitors at Los Angeles Nation Membership with a remaining rating of 19-7.
It additionally featured a participant who simply earned his PGA Tour card this 12 months: Braden Thornberry. Thornberry gained this 12 months’s Korn Ferry Tour Championship to earn a promotion to the massive leagues in 2025.
Not lengthy after his win, Thornberry joined GOLF’s Subpar for a wide-ranging interview with co-hosts Knost and Drew Stoltz.
Naturally, the 2007 Walker Cup got here up throughout their dialog, and Thornberry offered a revealing perspective on the star-studded staff. Knost couldn’t assist however ask the newly-minted Tour professional which Walker Cup teammate appeared to have the brightest future on the time.
“Who did you assume would have the very best profession off of the staff?” Knost requested.
Surprisingly, Scheffler was not the person on Thornberry’s thoughts. As a substitute, it was one other a number of main champion who he thought would make the most important waves within the professional ranks: Collin Morikawa.
“That’s a tricky query. In all probability Morikawa,” Thornberry replied. “He was one other attention-grabbing one in faculty too, as a result of he didn’t win as a lot as how good he was. However he completed high 5 in each huge event you possibly can think about, and simply clearly a phenomenal golf swing, every part was simply very sound. He seemed like a PGA Tour participant when he went on the market. In order that was most likely the can’t-miss individual.”
Whereas Morikawa hasn’t fairly had the profession that Scheffler has, he’s nonetheless some of the profitable younger execs in historical past. At age 27, Morikawa already has two main titles on his resume and 6 complete PGA Tour wins. For the file, Scheffler additionally has two majors, however he beats Morikawa on the PGA Tour win rely with 13.
You possibly can watch Thornberry speaking Walker Cup above, or you possibly can watch Thornberry’s whole hour-long Subpar interview on YouTube right here.
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Kevin Cunningham
Golf.com Editor
As managing producer for GOLF.com, Cunningham edits, writes and publishes tales on GOLF.com, and manages the model’s e-newsletters, which attain greater than 1.4 million subscribers every month. A former two-time intern, he additionally helps preserve GOLF.com buzzing exterior the news-breaking tales and repair content material offered by our reporters and writers, and works with the tech staff within the improvement of latest merchandise and revolutionary methods to ship an interesting web site to our viewers.