The years keep hurtling by. “Sixty effing two eh?,” growled Sam Torrance after successfully negotiating another 12 months on Monday. The ageing process doesn’t come itself, of course. Amid the various creaks, groans, aches and pains that are par for the course with the advancing years, Torrance has endured a prolonged, and extremely worrying, period of discomfort and disquiet. Here at Archerfield Links, for this week’s Prostate Cancer UK Scottish Senior Open, Torrance appears to be in fine fettle again after finally getting to the bottom of this mind-mangling menace. “It’s a trapped nerve here and it goes right down the leg,” said Torrance as he pointed to the groin and hip area that has been causing him considerable anguish. “I’ve had six months of injury and it’s been a nightmare. It only affects me when I’m standing up. If I’m standing with you at the bar having a drink, I’ll have to sit down after three or four minutes as the leg just gives way. It was pretty sinister to be honest. To not get to the bottom of it was very worrying. Was it muscular? Was it MS? I just didn’t know. But it’s just a trapped nerve. I’ll be alright for next year with a bit of treatment. I’m still feeling it, but it’s a weight of my mind now that I know what it is. I feel a hell of a lot better. The future is bright now.”

The actual diagnosis of Torrance’s troubles wasn’t exactly run of the mill. Unless you’re a well-paid stuntman, there’s not much to be gained from taking a painful tumble. Torrance’s topple, though, led to a positive breakthrough even if it did leave him with a sair heid. “It was extraordinary how we found out,” he added. “My leg gave way and I fell, right on the back of my head. So I went to see a neurologist and he asked me how it happened. I said my ‘leg gave way but that’s another story’ and he said ‘what?’ He told me he could check that too. He gave me this electrical test and discovered the trapped nerve. So I’ve had to bash my head to fix my leg. I still had to have an MRI scan on my head. It was a bad one but it’s fine.”

Given all this poking, probing, zapping and scanning, Torrance will be delighted to get back to the day job and hirple and hobble his way round the Fidra Links in a 54-hole championship that is being contested in a Pro-Am format for the first two rounds. As it battles with diminishing sponsorship, the European Senior Tour features just nine regular events these days and this Dunhill Links-style approach to proceedings this week could provide a way forward. “Something needs to happen to reinvigorate the circuit and this is maybe it,” said Torrance, who won the Scottish Senior Open title in 2006 and has 11 wins on the over-50s circuit. “I don’t know why sponsors don’t seem to like us. We provide a really good package and we look after the sponsors by having dinners with them, lessons whatever but obviously it isn’t enough. Maybe the new format will change things.”

Paul Broadhurst, the former Ryder Cup player, is one of the new recruits to the golden oldies scene and the Senior Tour rookie is relishing the prospect of his debut on the circuit here in East Lothian. Life begins at 50 and all that. “The last three or four years I’ve been wishing my life away,” said Broadhurst, a six-time winner on the main European Tour. “I must be just about the only person who has wanted to be 50 ever since I was 46 or 47. People might not understand that but it’s a great opportunity to be competitive again. The bank balance has taken a battering the last three or four years so I need to make a good start.”

There were plenty of well-kent faces kicking about the plush and pleasant surrounds of Archerfield yesterday. The goalkeeping great Ray Clemence – yes, the Ray Clemence of Hampden horror shows and fitba’s squirming through the legs – has plenty of reasons to be competing this week. Not only is he an avid amateur golfer, he is also eager to aid the tournament sponsors and raise awareness of prostate cancer, an affliction he has battled twice, among middle aged men.

“Let’s face it, men don't like to think that anything is wrong with them, especially sportsmen, and if you have a slight problem 'down there' it will never be at the forefront of your mind that it could be cancer,” said the 67-year-old. “To see this tournament packaged up as the Prostate Cancer UK Scottish Senior Open is an incredibly powerful statement.”