Having only one Scot in the US Open isn’t anything new.
Colin Montgomerie was our sole representative on a few occasions, and the fact that he nearly won it a couple of times probably helped gloss over our poor head count.
But it’s still very disappointing that the numbers game isn’t improving.
Russell Knox could contend this week, and his rise over the last couple of years has been very impressive.
But where’s the next Monty or even Russell Knox?
Paul Lawrie and Stephen Gallacher have had good careers but they’re nearer the end of them at the top level as opposed to the beginning.
The potential US Open entrants of the future seem to be few and far between, and there certainly don’t seem to be any future superstars on the horizon.
It’s a shame that Perthshire’s Bradley Neil hasn’t kicked on after his big amateur win but it seems to be a familiar story that promising players struggle when they turn pro.
You could actually make a case that the women’s game in this country is more encouraging.
Pamela Pretswell has qualified for the US Open and Kelsey MacDonald did that last year. There also seems to be a growing number of young ladies on the European Tour.
And when you go down to grassroots I was really pleased to see that Strathmore teenager Kirsty Brodie has been selected for Scotland. I’ve given a talk at Strathmore in the past – I’ve seen Kirsty play – and I know the junior section there is really strong.
You can talk about systems and programmes all you want, sometimes the biggest thing is a star emerging who others can follow and aspire to. You get the “if he or she can do it, so can I” effect.
Hopefully one emerges, whether it be a boy or a girl, over the next few years.
It was great to see Brooke Henderson win her first Major at the weekend, the PGA Championship.
I was lucky enough to play with Brooke in the pro-am for last year’s British Open at Turnberry.
She’s just 18 and, you could see a year ago that she had a fantastic game. I wasn’t too far off her distance but she never missed a fairway and had a brilliant short-game.
She also knew her curling!
Brooke’s exactly the type of young role model I was talking about that Scottish golf needs.
Every big sporting event seems to have a news story in the build-up to it.
With the Olympics it’s the Zika Virus and the last Winter Olympics was all about the suitability of Sochi hosting the Games.
After what we’ve seen in France over the last few days, you can be guaranteed that Russian hooliganism will dominate the news agenda over the next two years in the run-up to the World Cup.
My own experiences of Russia have been pretty positive but you can’t get away from the fact that there has been some pretty scary stuff going on in the streets of Marseille and Lille. If that’s what a few hundred Russians are like in another country, what will they be capable of in their own towns and cities?
But Russia is the type of country that takes great pride in making sure that they show their best face for these big events. The Olympics was first class from a competitor’s perspective. There’s no way their leaders will want to be embarrassed with the eyes of the world on them, so I’d be pretty confident that they’ll clamp down on the problem before the World Cup starts.
