It’s always nice to feel appreciated now and again. The sports editor, for instance, thinks I’m the salt of the earth. Presumably that’s why he keeps me in the cellar, unleashing me on an occasional basis to garnish the back page before swiftly returning me from whence I came with the same startled display of flustered, foutering that tends to be adopted by someone hastily shoving a crumpled pile of questionable documents into a drawer upon hearing the words “can you open the door please, it’s the police.”

Regular readers will be nodding in agreement, no doubt. You have, after all, probably harboured long-standing suspicions that the Tuesday column has always been a shady haven of criminal activity down the seasons.

Writing about golf is one thing. Playing it is another. This correspondent, for example, has produced so many calamitous, crippling shots, I’m now only allowed to get my clubs out under strict MOD supervision at the Barry Buddon Shooting Range.

It’s only a game, though. And what are games supposed to be? That’s right. Enjoyable. Speaking to those behind the Central Scotland Order of Merit, a 20-strong series of one-day events aiming to bolster some cherished old 36-holers and breathe new life into the domestic amateur scene, was, well, a breath of fresh air.

In these times when the boundaries between the top end of the amateur game and the professional set-up are as blurred as the wrong eye prescription, it can be easy for those at a certain level to lose the competitive fire and the enthusiasm. We live in an era of pathways, strategies and high performance programmes with a chosen few being granted a wealth of opportunity and assistance in an effort to unearth our new golfing star. It’s taking a heck of an unearthing too.

The amateur-to-professional turnover thunders on at a quite eye-popping rate even though the vast majority of those making the leap end up eking out a fairly grim, hand-to-mouth existence on some obscure satellite-tour that guzzles away more money and morale than an industrial money and morale guzzler.

As for the career amateur, meanwhile, for whom golf remains a game not a job, there can often be an increasing sense of isolation. Barry Hume, the 2001 Scottish Amateur champion, has tasted life on both sides of the golfing fence. Having been re-instated into the unpaid ranks a few seasons ago, the 35-year-old was a key driver behind the formation of the Central Scotland Order of Merit a wee while ago and he has an appetite for bolstering the playing platforms for those low-handicappers who are on the outside looking in but still possess considerable talent and competitive nous There are plenty of them around with impressive pedigrees and they have an important role to play in strengthening the depth of the amateur game in an age when the cream constantly gets licked off the top as the pro game comes calling.

“There are players here who are too good not to be playing competitively,” suggested Hume of an amateur game that has become dominated by young, full-time campaigners who don’t hang around in the unpaid ranks for long. “For a lot of players, they’ll get into the Craigmillar Park Open and the Battle Trophy in April but then that may be it until the Tennant Cup about two months later. In the meantime, the guys who are in the squads are playing the Lytham Trophy, the Brabazon Trophy, the Irish Open Strokeplay and the Scottish Open Strokeplay. They have a great schedule from April right through to the Amateur Championship but a lot of the guys have nothing to play in. They are almost forgotten about and some may have lost that fire.”

The amateur game at the top level can’t just be about trying to prepare players for the step up into the paid ranks but in this increasingly ‘professionalised’ arena of elite exponents, that's where the focus lies. There still needs to be opportunity, incentive and reward for the majority who still want to revel in the competitive cut-and-thrust and continue to savour that sense of enjoyment that got them into golf in the first place.

AND ANOTHER THING

The last player to finish with an eagle on the 18th at Torrey Pines and win a PGA Tour event was Tiger Woods in 1999. Jon Rahm, the young Spaniard who will probably be now known as ‘the swashbuckling Spaniard’, emulated that at Sunday’s Farmers Insurance Open with a raking putt of 60 feet to claim his maiden title. At just 22, he has joined golf’s burgeoning young guns. At 41, meanwhile, Woods, who missed the cut on his comeback, may just be feeling that bit older as he surveys the fearless talent that surrounds him.