Golf has a habit of bringing you back down to earth with the kind of painful clatter that would’ve made the plummet of Icarus look like a controlled landing.

Everybody, for instance, has probably enjoyed the exhilaration of trundling in a 40-footer for an unlikely birdie on the 12th before enduring the lonely, humbling trudge off the very next tee as your woefully hoiked drive skitters into the wilds.

For Beth Allen, the 2017 campaign on the LPGA Tour, her first on the premier women’s circuit since 2005, was something of a sobering experience. The Edinburgh-based Californian had bounded onto the tour with a spring in her step after becoming the first American to be crowned the Ladies European Tour No 1 the previous year.

A sturdy share of seventh in the Australian Open in her opening LPGA event provided plenty of positives but the toils and troubles kicked in and a run of 10 missed cuts in a row during the height of the season sapped the morale.

She may be American but Allen was hindered by that age old Scottish golfing affliction, namely the woes with the putter. Ahead of a new start on the LPGA Tour in the Bahamas later this month, Allen is hoping for better things in 2018.

“A year ago, things were much better golf wise but I’m determined to get back to that level of form again,” declared Allen, whose 2017 also featured an “amicable” split from her caddie Sophie Gustafson.

“I was trying to stay afloat last season and in 2018 I won’t have the big expectations after such a good 2016. This year, I can just be myself without any extra attention or burden. I’m not a different player, I just had putting issues. I’ll sort it out. I lost confidence with the putter. Because I had holed so many putts in 2016, that almost made it worse.

“There wasn’t any real chance to stop and work on my game either. On the LPGA you are playing every week and if you’re struggling you don’t have time to sort it out. You could come home but then you feel like you’re losing ground on everyone else. It was tricky.”

At least Allen had plenty of playing opportunities during 2017. With the troubled Ladies European Tour schedule ravaged, the 36-year-old picked a good year to earn a step up to the lucrative LPGA circuit.

The European scene remains close to Allen’s heart, however, and the struggles of the tour which gave her a platform to develop were certainly not lost on her.

“Perhaps I got lucky with the timing of getting my LPGA card given the way the LET ended up going last season,” she said. “I feel for the LET. I’m still on the board and it was tough being out in the US and seeing what was happening back here. I do care for the LET. It was a huge shame what happened and in a sense it may have been a bit distracting for me.

“I hope we can get it better again because I still plan on playing both tours. That’s what I set out to do in 2017 but didn’t really have the chance to because they weren’t many events on the LET. I love it over here in Europe and I was never that keen to go back to the US. At the end of 2016 I just thought ‘why not give it a go?’ as I was playing so well.”

The LPGA Tour has changed a bit since Allen first made tentative strides on it as a rookie back in 2005. “I’m one of the older ones out there now which is crazy,” she added. “It takes time to get used to playing so much golf again. I didn’t feel tired, though, but I just have to work that bit harder and stretch a bit more.

“The standard is at a whole new level from when I first played on it. I was more competitive this year than I was back in 2005 and that says a lot about my game.

“There are not many cuts that are over par. It’s a grind but if you have a decent week you are making money every time. And that’s nice.”

After a testing 2017, Allen will be hoping to delve deeper into the LPGA riches this season.