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.
Read more: American dream for Hull as migration of talent continues to hit Ladies European Tour
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.
Read more: American dream for Hull as migration of talent continues to hit Ladies European Tour
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.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here