Talk about rings of ire. Golf’s passage back to the Olympic Games has been about as comfortable as Colin Montgomerie on a Greco-Roman wrestling mat. The Royal & Ancient game’s rocky road to Rio continues to be the talk of the golfing steamie, as you can read elsewhere in this fine organ, and if there’s one person who likes to blether then it’s Monty. That can all change once a tournament actually starts, of course, but on the eve of a championship, when he is in a smiling, engaging, carnival mood before a ball is clattered in anger, the 53-year-old can generate more words than John Chilcot.

In this game of numbers, there are other figures that keep increasing for Montgomerie. “I looked and I was something like No 1200 in the world,” said Monty, who is actually 1587th but don’t tell him that. “I thought, ‘that’s rubbish, I’m better than that.’ But as a senior golfer now, my world ranking is suspended.”

The advancing years have certainly not dimmed Montgomerie’s enthusiasm or competitive drive and ahead of the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open here at Castle Stuart, the former Ryder Cup skipper continues to think the unthinkable. There’s not been a Scottish winner of the Scottish Open since Montgomerie himself triumphed in 1999 at Loch Lomond so what would it mean to a man who has plundered 31 European Tour titles during a shimmering career to pull off an unlikely conquest? “Everything,” he said. “You’ve got to be realistic and realise that a top-10 here would be a hell of an achievement. But Miguel Angel Jimenez won a regular Tour event in his 50s and I would like to think it was somehow still possible. These type of links courses give the older generation more of an opportunity. I’m still competitive and I want to prove that.”

Given that the rest of the Scots on the European Tour have hardly given us cause to hang out the bunting so far this season, you can’t knock Montgomerie for stating his purposeful intentions. “We are going through a lean spell,” he added of this current malaise in the cradle of the game. “There’s no getting away from that. There was a spell when England really only had Lee Westwood in the top 100 in the world but all of a sudden they’ve had a resurgence. Let’s hope there is light at the end of the tunnel.”

It was three years ago that Phil Mickelson finally saw the light when it came to links golf. The Californian had spent seasons trying to get to the grips with the various nuances, fiddlings and footerings of the links test but in 2013 he finally had his Eureka moment. Victory in the Scottish Open at Castle Stuart was swiftly followed by the ultimate seaside success in the Open Championship at Muirfield seven days later as Mickelson got a monkey the size of King Kong off his back.

The 46-year-old has not tasted victory since he lifted the Claret Jug and despite close shaves on the PGA Tour in 2016 – he was runner-up at Pebble Beach in February and second at the St Jude Classic last month – the five-time major winner’s inconsistency this season continues to leave him scratching his head like Stan Laurel trying to figure out the Herald’s cryptic crossword. “I don’t have a great answer for you,” he said to a crowd of folk looking for answers. "It's hard to say when it's going to all click. I hope it clicks this week. I don't feel like it's far off but I've been saying that for a while."

Back in his happy highland hunting ground this week, Mickelson continues to harbour a great affection for this neck of the golfing woods. On a day when a lot of chatter was about those aforementioned Olympic rings, Mickelson preferred to focus on rings of a different kind. "On the Sunday of the final round here at the Scottish Open (in 2013), my daughter (Sophia), went into town and she had bought two rings for my wife and I, unknowing to us," he explained. "She had gone online and became an ordained minister and she ended up having a wedding vow renewal for my wife and I at the place we were staying and where I'm staying again this week.

"It was a very emotional thing. It was one of the coolest things that has ever been done for Amy and I. I'm very appreciative to have had that experience, but also to be able to come back and relive it."

After three years without a victory, Mickelson would dearly love to renew his relationship with that winning feeling again.