This year is no different. Here is our breakdown, (thanks to tournament director Ben Tuthill for helping with the research) along with a preview video to give you a taste of the course from a drone's eye view.

Let's start off with 2016 US Amateur runner-up and member of the NCAA National Championship team at Oklahoma, Brad Dalke, who will return for his third time after a missed cut, but great experience, at the U.S. Open at Erin Hills. All told, four of the amateurs in our field will be coming from the Open, including  Dalke, Sahith Theegala, Stewart Hagestad (our roommate for the week) and Scottie Scheffler, fresh off finishing low amateur among the 14 amateurs who made it to Erin Hills.

Scheffler's Texas Longhorn teammates (and top-ranked amateurs) Doug Ghim and Gavin Hall will also be contending for the prestigious title.

REPRESENTING USA

This year’s field includes six members of the Arnold Palmer Cup team. The USA Palmer cup squad defeated Europe convincingly at Atlanta Athletic Club June 8-11.  The team included Ping First-Team All- American and 2017 Jack Nicklaus Award recipient Sam Burns (LSU), Nick Hardy (Illinois), Chandler Phillips (Texas A&M) and John Coultas (Florida Southern) along with Cal-Berkeley's Collin Morikawa and Ghim.

The Northeast Amateur has traditionally been used as one of the final evaluation events for selection to the Walker Cup team. This year the Walker Cup matches will be held at Los Angeles Country Club on Sept. 9-10, 2017. Walker Cup team captain John `Spider’ Miller will be monitoring the action closely as 8 of the 16 members of the Walker Cup practice squad will be on hand. The players include Dawson Armstrong (Lipscomb U.) and reigning US Mid-Am champion Hagestad, who was low amateur at The Masters in April. The others include Dalke, Ghim, Hall, Hardy, Morikawa and Scheffler.

Other top-ranked players include Ping First-Team All-American Patrick Martin (Vanderbilt) who finished T-2 last year. First-timers with strong resumes this year are led by freshman All-Americans John Augenstein (Vanderbilt), Cooper Dossey (Baylor) and Doc Redman (Clemson).

Two of the top three juniors in Golfweek’s rankings are in the field, including No. 1 ranked Noah Goodwin of Corinth, Texas (SMU commit), No. 3 Davis Shore of Knoxville, Tenn. (Alabama commit) and No. 7 Cole Hammer of Houston, Tex. (Univ. of Texas commit). Hammer, it should be noted, played the U.S. Open in 2015 as a 15-year-old, having advanced through sectional qualifying against some players who hit it almost 100 yards past him.

Impressive stuff.

LOCAL TALENT

The Northeast isn't traditionally known as a breading ground for PGA Tour players, but don't tell Brad Faxon and Billy Andrade. Both of them grew up in the Ocean State and took advantage of the early start to the golf season that is afforded by proximity to the ocean. And they learned to play in the wind.

The 2017 Northeast Amateur field includes R.I. Amateur champ and Wannamoisett member Davis Chatfield (a Notre Dame commit); Rhode Island Player-of -the-Year Kevin Silva; Crane Cup champ and Wannamoisett member Bobby Leopold; recent University of Rhode Island graduate Billy Walthouse; 4-time RI Am champ Brad Valois.

They are joined by Massachusetts Player-of-the-Year Matt Parziale and New England Am champ James Turner.