Given that we humble Scots bequeathed this Royal & Ancient game to the world, the list of golfing pioneers and decorated champions that this country has produced is long, rich and varied.

Of course, comparing golfers from vastly different eras is not an exact science, more an instinctive stab as you try and digest a sturdy brew of history, tradition, achievement, influence, global renown and longevity. Having punched all of these factors in to The Herald's super computer - an elaborate contraption made up of pistons, pulleys and birling cogs - the results have been spewed out amid much clanking, clattering and chuff-chuffs of steam. Over the next three days, we count down Scotland's 18 greatest golfers. Debate it, disagree with it but enjoy it. It's only a game, after all.

18. Belle Robertson

The grand dame of Dunaverty? The Belle of the dimpled ba' game? Call her what you like, Robertson was a dab hand with the sticks. Still winning national titles in her 50s, Robertson was one of the first golfers to embrace a simple fitness regime that would bring bountiful rewards throughout a fulfilling career. A haul of seven Scottish Women's Championships - one more than the equally decorated Jessie Valentine - is a feat unlikely to be surpassed while a series of British crowns and nine Curtis Cup appearances as both player and captain burnished a shimmering CV. That she was one of the first women to be given honorary membership of the Royal & Ancient earlier this year spoke volumes for her standing in the game.

17. Ronnie Shade

In the Scottish amateur scene, Duddingston man Shade enjoyed a run of success that no-one came within a 4-iron of matching, or are ever likely to, given the rapid turnover to the professional ranks these days.

Between 1963 and 1967, the man known as 'Right Doon the Bloody Middle' - a moniker forged from his initials Ronald David Bell Mitchell - won five Scottish Amateur Championships in a row. His swinging 60s were also illuminated by a trio of English Open Strokeplay triumphs, four Walker Cup appearances and the silver medal as the leading amateur in the 1966 Open at Muirfield. Along with the redoubtable Charlie Green, Shade was one of the world's finest amateurs before he turned pro at the age of 30 and chalked up a trio of successes.

16. Allan Robertson

Largely accepted as being the game's first professional and the supreme player of his age, St Andrews-born Robertson made his mark at a time when championship golf didn't exist. It was only after his death, at the age of 44 in 1859, that tournament play began to emerge and the Open was, effectively, started in his memory a year later. A ball-maker by trade, Robertson, the first player to break 80 on the Old Course, favoured the featherie ball and was left particularly scunnered when the cheaper and superior gutta percha came on the scene, rendering his own business obsolete. "It's nae gowff' he lamented, a phrase that can still be heard to this day in the boardrooms of Titleist, TaylorMade and Callaway when one steals a march on the other.

15. Brian Barnes

As colourful as Joseph's dreamcoat, Anglo-Scot Barnes was a maverick who would mark his ball with a can of beer, captivate spectators - "we're also bloody entertainers" - and leave golfing officialdom tut-tutting like a disapproving headmaster lecturing a naughty schoolboy. This effervescent character was also an imposing competitor, famed for beating the great Jack Nicklaus twice on the same day in the 1975 Ryder Cup. Barnes would feature six times in the biennial bout with the US between 1969 and 1979 while his individual record on the week-to-week battlefronts was decorated by nine European Tour wins. Barnes would also win two Senior British Open Championships as he moved into his 50s but the painful onset of arthritis brought his playing days to a premature end.

14. John Panton

It remains a good test of the clubhouse barman's knowledge if he can rustle up 'a John Panton' without thumbing through the history books or trawling the internet. Many a glass - possibly stronger than Panton's eponymous ginger beer and lime concoction - has been raised to Gentleman John's achievements down the years. An indomitable figure in Scottish golf during the 1950s and 60s, Panton was as renowned for his good manners and taciturn nature as he was for his bountiful successes. Former European No 1, multiple Scottish champion, three-time Ryder Cup player, long-serving Glenbervie professional and honorary pro with the Royal & Ancient, Panton, who died at the age of 92, remains a cherished figure and his career and influence is rightly celebrated.

13. Bernard Gallacher

Another great Scot whose career was defined by the Ryder Cup, Gallacher is as much a part of the game's furniture as clubs, balls and knifed bunker shots. A popular, unassuming and approachable man, it's no wonder he pops up here, there and everywhere whenever the modern media require some pearls of golfing wisdom. Eight times he played in the Ryder Cup, from a debut as a 20-year-old in 1969, and skippered the side three times, culminating in the famous one point victory at Oak Hill in 1995. From Jersey to Zambia, Gallacher was a multiple European Tour winner and a keen competitor. A cardiac arrest in 2013 nearly killed him but, thankfully, one of Scotland's most respected golfing sons is as fit as a buffed up fiddle again.

12. Eric Brown

With the kind of fiery volatility that would make Vesuvius look like a damp pothole on Bathgate High Street, Eric Brown, a celebrated son of that West Lothian mining town, was one of the country's most fearsome and prolific competitors. As well as a string of Scottish and European wins, the 'Brown Bomber' revelled in the Ryder Cup cut-and-thrust and was unbeaten in four singles ties while captaining the side twice. His most talked about encounter came in the 1957 match at Lindrick when he beat Tommy 'Thunder' Bolt 4 and 3 in a tumultuous tussle. Shortly before their tee-off time, the duo were still nowhere to be seen prompting Jimmy Demaret to spout the great line: "Oh, they're out there on the practice ground, throwing clubs at each other from 50 paces."

11. Willie Park Senior

One of the early pioneers of professional golf, Wallyford-born Park rose to prominence from the ranks of the caddies and won the very first Open Championship at Prestwick in 1860. His rivalry with Old Tom Morris in those formative years of the event made Palmer and Nicklaus look like Steptoe & Son. In the first eight years of the Open, Park won three times while Old Tom won four and the duo were held in great reverence by the punters of the day. Of course, success would run in the Park family. His brother, Mungo, won the Open in 1874 while his son, Willie Jnr, was something of a jack of all trades and won two Opens, designed equipment, dabbled in golf writing and became a decorated course architect. The Parks truly were a golfing family and the name continues to be revered throughout the world.