Sporting Bygones: When American legends Snead and Hogan joined forces to rule the golfing world at Wentworth

Mention World Cup and the brain automatically switches on to football, South Africa just gone, 1966, Brazil 2014 or – we hope – England 2018 but for golfing aficionados the Royal and Ancient game's global shootout has its own catalogue of stars, not least the two who dominated the tournament on its only visit to these shores.

Originally called the Canada Cup, the event was the brainchild of John Jay Hopkins, an industrialist in that country who hoped – like Samuel Ryder when he created the contest named in his honour – that an international competition between nations would help promote goodwill.

The first Canada Cup was held in Montreal and won by the Argentine pair of Antonio Cerda and Roberto de Vicenzo. It was played over 36 holes of stroke-play with the combined total of both players determining the winner.

Between 1954 and 1999, the format was 72 holes of stroke-play then a combination of fourball and foursomes was used. In addition, there was an individual event for a separate trophy, to determine the individual winner.

The Canada Cup became the World Cup of Golf in 1993 but will not be played this year as the plan is for it to become a bi-annual event – like the Ryder Cup – resuming in 2011 at Mission Hills GC in Shenzhen, China, to allow for the introduction of golf into the Olympic Games in 2016.

The holders are Italian brothers Edoardo and Francesco Molinari, who had Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell and Sweden's Henrik Stenson and Robert Karlsson just behind them last year – further proof, if it were needed, of the strength of European golf these days.

Things were not quite the same in June, 1956, when the United States recorded the second of their 23 successes in the World Cup as two of the greatest players the game has seen – Sam Snead and Ben Hogan – took the honour at Wentworth, Hogan also claiming the individual prize. South Africa's Bobby Locke and Gary Player were runners-up.

Snead and Hogan – plus a third outstanding American golfer in Byron Nelson – were born within six months of each other in 1912 and are still revered wherever the game is played.

Snead won a record 82 tournaments on the US PGA Tour and seven majors: three Masters, one Open Championship and three PGA Championships but never managed to win the US Open, finishing as runner-up four times.

Hogan claimed 63 PGA Tour titles and nine majors, putting him in fourth place in the list headed by Jack Nicklaus with 18. His successes came in the Masters in 1951 and 1953; the US Open in 1948, 1950, 1951 and 1953; the Open Championship in 1953; and the PGA Championship in 1946 and 1948.

His achievements were all the more remarkable because in February, 1949 – at the age of 36 – his car collided with a Greyhound bus in thick fog and he suffered a double-fracture

of the pelvis, a fractured collar-bone and left ankle, a chipped rib and near-fatal blood clots.

It could have been worse; Hogan had thrown himself sideways to protect his wife Valerie and the steering wheel had punctured the driver's seat.

Doctors said he might never walk again, let alone play golf competitively. He left hospital on April 1 just 59 days after the accident and the following year was back as a tournament winner, leading up to his annus mirabilis in 1953, the year he was the closest anyone has been to winning the modern-day grand slam of golf.

He won five of the six tournaments he entered, including the first three majors of the season, the Masters, the US Open and the Open but could not compete in the PGA Championship because the dates clashed with the Open at Carnoustie.

It remains the only time that a golfer has won the first three majors of the year; Tiger Woods won the final three in 2000 and the first in 2001.

Hogan was also able to put into words readily understood by beginners the basics of the golf swing; his "Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf" and its follow-up "Power Golf" remain two of the most-read instructional books on the game.

Wentworth would be Hogan's only World Cup victory but Snead combined with Arnold Palmer to win the trophy at Portmarnock in 1960, teamed up with Jimmy Demaret to retain it the following year in Puerto Rico – when he also took the individual title – and completed his hat-trick in Buenos Aires in 1962, again in partnership with Palmer.

He also finished as runner-up in 1957, alongside Demaret, and 1959 with Cary Middlecoff.

England have not had anyone in the same class as Snead when it comes to the World Cup which, coming as it traditionally does as the last event of the year, does not always attract the leading players in the world rankings.

Nick Faldo and David Carter became England's first winners with success in New Zealand in 1998 and Paul Casey and Luke Donald followed up in Seville in 2004 while Yorkshire's Howard Clark took the individual honours in 1984 at La Quinta, California, when he and Paul Way finished second behind Canadians Dave Barr and Dan Halldorson.

With its place in the calendar once again secured and a new main sponsor offering generous backing, the World Cup may yet regain the status it had when Snead and Hogan were the winners.

It might even have the prestige – and prize-fund – to attract the best of British golfers.

Justin Rose and Ian Poulter; Lee Westwood and Ross Fisher; Casey and Donald; Oliver Wilson and Chris Wood; take any two from that group and England could once again win the World Cup.