For local golf fans, it doesn’t get any better than this.

This is the best week of the year.

This is the week when top professional players — both male and female — will be playing in the CVS Charity Classic at Rhode Island Country Club beside scenic Narragansett Bay, and the best amateurs in the country will be playing in the 48th Northeast Amateur at Wannamoisett in Rumford.

 Two terrific tournaments played on two Donald Ross-designed gems featuring a bumper crop of high-quality players. Right here in Little Rhody.

 Not surprisingly, eight of the 16 men who were scheduled to play in the CVS are Northeast Amateur alumni, including two former winners at Wannamoisett — Anthony Kim (2004) and Brett Quigley (1988). Davis Love III — winner of 20 PGA Tour events, highlighted by the PGA Championship in 1997; Camilo Villegas, Todd Hamilton, Nick Watney, and, of course, CVS hosts Billy Andrade and Brad Faxon, all played in the Northeast before turning pro.

Among other past Northeast winners are the likes of Ben Crenshaw (1973), Hal Sutton (1980), David Duval (1992) and two-time winner Luke Donald (2000 and 2001.)

Certainly, there are future PGA players who’ll be teeing it up Wednesday through Saturday at Wannamoisett, with 17 of the top 20 amateurs in the United States in the field.

It’s a tribute to Faxon, Andrade and Denny Glass — now in his 16th year as chairman of the Northeast Amateur — that so many fine players will be displaying their talents in our state this week.

If Jim Baron and Keno Davis could recruit like Faxon, Andrade and Glass, the Rams and Friars wouldn’t just be playing in the NCAA Tournament every year — they’d be perennial threats to go to the Final Four.

Truth be told, however, it’s a lot easier to attract cream-of-the-crop golfers to the CVS and Northeast than it is top-caliber hoops prospects to PC and URI.

“As the reputation of the tournament has grown,” Faxon has said, “I get asked all the time by guys if they can play.”

The hard part, Faxon said, is not getting people to play — it’s having to tell some of those who want to come that they’ll have to wait until next year.

Similarly, the best young collegiate players in the land are eager to test their talents at Wannamoisett — especially in years, such as this one, when they’re battling for berths on the U.S. Walker Cup team. The biennial match pitting American golfers against a team from Great Britain and Ireland will be held in September at the famed Merion Golf Club in Ardmore, Pa., which has hosted more USGA championships than any course in the country.

The United States will be defending the Walker Cup, having won by a point two years ago at Royal County Down, when 2007 Northeast champion Dustin Johnson was a member of the team, along with Billy Horschel, who was a top-five finisher that year at Wannamoisett.

Reigning U.S. Senior Amateur champion Buddy Marucci, who lost to Tiger Woods in the finals of the 1995 U.S. Amateur at Newport Country Club, is the captain of the Walker Cup team. He’ll be returning to Wannamoisett, where he’s played many times in the Northeast Amateur.

 “Everybody recognizes that the USGA really likes our event,” Glass said. “They’ve named our champion to the Walker Cup team every year I can remember.”

Unlike some other amateur events, which send representatives around the country recruiting players, the Northeast organizers don’t have to do any traveling.

 “It speaks well for the reputation of our tournament that we don’t have to travel to recruit,” Glass said.

What Glass does do is a great deal of research, because the invitations to the Northeast go out in February. The “homework” certainly paid off this year.

Among the future stars who’ll be teeing it up Wednesday are Oklahoma State freshman Morgan Hoffmann, currently ranked No. 1 in the world by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrew’s; Mike Van Sickle of Marquette, winner this year of the prestigious Byron Nelson Award; Drew Weaver of Virginia Tech, who won the British Amateur in 2007 and is playing in the U.S. Open; Zach Sucher of Alabama-Birmingham; and Georgia’s Brian Harman.

There’s no shortage of local rooting interests, with Peter Uihlein of Mattapoisett and collegiate golf powerhouse Oklahoma State; five-time RIGA Player of the Year Charlie Blanchard; David McAndrew of Barrington and Stetson; Matt Broome, also of Barrington, now playing at Faxon’s alma mater, Furman; and Bobby Leopold of Cranston and Bentley.

The CVS always has an attractive field. That’s true in more ways than one this year, graced as it will be by the presence of Natalie Gulbis, Morgan Pressel, Julie Inkster and Helen Alfreddson.

The glamorous Gulbis poses annually for a wildly popular calendar — the 2004 version of which was banned by the USGA from sale at the Open at the Orchards, in South. Hadley, Mass., for being too provocative. Pressell two years ago became the youngest-ever winner of an LPGA major championship when she won the Kraft Nabisco two months before her 19th birthday. She is featured in advertisements for Polo golf attire. Inkster is one of the LPGA’s all-time greats, having won 31 tournaments.

That’s why this is a great week for local golf fans — the best of the year.