Given all the hand-wringing that’s been going on over Gordon Strachan’s future, it’s quite a relief just to be able to type the words ‘and a Scotland team will compete in the World Cup this week.’

The World Cup in question is the golfing equivalent at Kingston Heath in Australia and the duo of Russell Knox, the world No 18, and his fellow highlander Duncan Stewart, currently ranked No 315 on the global order, will carry the saltire in an event Scotland triumphed in back in 2007.

Unless you have been hiding in the outback, you will have probably registered that Knox’s decision to pick his close friend and former Jacksonville University team-mate Stewart as his partner has caused a fair bit of grumping and groaning in Scottish circles.

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The rules state that the top-ranked player can choose whoever he wants and, given the mimping and moaning by some of Scotland’s other spurned professionals who didn’t get a nice, cash-laden end of year jaunt down under, Knox and Stewart are probably doubly determined to put on a good show and deliver something of a Harvey Smith salute to the detractors back home.

Along with Knox, Stewart, who has earned promotion to next year’s European Tour, is the only other Scottish male golfer to win a notable title this season having secured his maiden win on the second-tier Challenge Tour in May. “Perhaps we are going to surprise a few people,” stated Stewart.

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The tartan twosome will possibly have a degree of sympathy for the English duo of Chris Wood and Andy Sullivan, who have also come under some criticism during a series of twists and turns in the build up to the event. Initially, Danny Willett, the Masters champion, had chosen Lee Westwood to be his partner but then Willett withdrew and his place was offered to Justin Rose, who declined to play.

As the next highest-ranked English player, Wood was offered the chance to compete and he decided to pick Sullivan, a friend he feels comfortable partnering, at the expense of Westwood, who had already booked his flights. Westwood supporters have cried that he’s a victim of an old pals act although that conveniently forgets to take into account Westwood’s call up to the European Ryder Cup team by his, er, old pal Darren Clarke. What goes around, comes around and all that. Anyway, Wood is keen to perform well “to get a few people off my back.”

The same could be said for Knox and Stewart.