Sam Burns

Victory in last season’s WGC-Dell Match Play – his fifth success on the PGA Tour – was rewarded with a wild card call-up for his Ryder Cup debut in Rome in September, nine years after he appeared in the Junior Ryder Cup.

His Open Championship debut at Sandwich in 2021 came two months after his maiden Tour victory at the Valspar Championship, where a second round 63 helped him to a three-stroke win.

By adding the Sanderson Farms Championship later the same year, he was quickly into the world’s top 10 and he moved back there with a successful defence of the Valspar before capturing the Charles Schwab Challenge with a seven-shot last-day comeback and play-off win over then world No.1 Scottie Scheffler.

Overcame Scheffler again in the semi-finals of Match Play and then defeated 2022 Open runner-up Cameron Young to take the title.

In 2017, he won the Jack Nicklaus award as the top college player in America.

Qualified for the Tour’s Barbasol Championship that season and on the day he turned 21 finished a superb joint sixth after following an opening 68 with three 66s. Also has a Presidents Cup cap to his name, partnering Scheffler in the first three sessions as America won by five points in 2022.