You can’t help thinking this, because now it’s three out of five, with the two exceptions too blatant to ignore.
At the BMW PGA Championship at the weekend, England’s lanky Chris Wood, despite a few wobbles and the utterly bizarre situation of hitting successive pitching wedges at the final hole – the last, ludicrous word on the ridiculous redesign of the 18th at Wentworth’s West Course – came through to win his biggest title to date.
And try as I might, because it’s a story that you really hate repeating, as a result you have to go back to 2008 and, of all places, the Bonallack Trophy matches which pitched amateur teams from Europe and Asia in a Ryder Cup/Walker Cup format.
There were five Great Britain and Ireland players in the European team. They were Wood, Danny Willett, Shane Lowry, and Scots Wallace Booth and Callum Macaulay.
Wood has now won the former flagship but still lucrative PGA and has long been an established European Tour pro. Lowry won the Irish Open while still an amateur, and has become a top 50 player, winning the WGC Bridgestone last year.
Willett? Well, no introduction necessary unless you’ve been living under a rock for two months. All three are likely to play in the Ryder Cup in September.
Booth, meanwhile, is flitting between Challenge Tour and EuroPro Tour, Macaulay had recently taken up his clubs again after chucking them into a cupboard in frustration and driving a taxi instead.
I don’t really wish to single out and certainly not blame Wallace or Callum. It’s a hugely complex thing, this turning amateur promise into professional success, and we’ve never got to the bottom of it in Scotland.
But when you see Willett, Wood, and Lowry, and on top of that the likes of Eddie Pepperell, Tyrell Hatton, Tommy Fleetwood all make it as Euro Tour regulars at the very least, you simply have to ask; what are we doing wrong here?
Has our system failed Callum and Wallace, and the third member of Scotland’s World Amateur Championship winning trio Gavin Dear, now reinstated as an amateur?
We’re not talking about insanely talented prodigies, the Rory McIlroys or Jordan Spieths or even Matt Fitzpatricks here. We’re talking about good golfing talents who somehow just don’t cut it once they’re in even the second division.
Willett, Lowry and Wood were no better than our guys around 2008. What made them kick on and our lads stand still? In the case of Booth, injury was unquestionably a factor, while Macaulay did get on tour and agonisingly close to a win that might have changed his fortunes.
And while our macho attitude to achievement likes to focus on the individual’s failure, it happens just too often to too many very different individuals.
Even in Wood’s victory there was another direct reminder of Scotland’s failings. On the big man’s bag and getting his own best payday was Mark Crane, a Scot from East Lothian.
Mark’s been around a bit, looping for Richie Ramsay and Paul Casey. But his first bag was Lloyd Saltman, maybe Scotland’s biggest can’t miss prospect of the last 20 years.
Only Lloyd has missed. It’s a crime that such a talent, probably second only to McIlroy in his generation of amateurs, should have floundered.
The latest attempt to develop something which will support the transition from amateur to pro is Scottish Golf’s tie-in with the Bounce management group.
Bounce, Stephen Gallacher’s managers, have taken Grant Forrest and Ewen Ferguson under their wing. The two Walker Cup players will turn pro at the end of this season, and the idea is that they can hit the ground running with the support mechanisms for them – at last – being fairly seamless.
Is this the key? Macaulay and others have been vocal about largely being abandoned once they had turned pro. Some, such as Saltman and more recently Forrest and Ferguson’s Walker Cup colleague Jack McDonald, didn’t seek any support.
If it doesn’t work for Forrest and Ferguson, or for McDonald, David Law and Bradley Neil making their own way through the ranks, I’m stumped.
We need a strong, consistent stream of young professionals coming on Tour. It’s a mystery we have to solve.
Jack’s event looks top drawer
Outside of the majors, the prentendy major Players and the WGCs, you’d be hard put to find a better field this year than at Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village this week.
Only Willett is missing of the top rank due to prior commiments. Messrs Day, Spieth and McIlroy, each of whom has won his last event, are all present and correct.
Spieth’s thunderous finish at the Colonial indicated all was right in his world again after the Augusta meltdown. Reports that he’s chewed out his management for his crazy schedule are all for the good.
Rory finished so well in Ireland, Day is so consistent. Looks like a great week.