Nice and easy does it for Glasgow golfer Simon Yates

And it’s not a bad home at that. A house on the Black Mountain course in Hua Hin, the resort where he notched a seventh place finish in the recent True Thailand Classic, is one of four pads in Yates’s property portfolio.

With the kind of multi-tasking ability of a Swiss Army knife, Yates has turned his sporting hand to a few pursuits down the years. He skied for Scotland alongside Alan Baxter in his youth, he’s birled round the motor racing circuits of Thailand and he’s notched two wins on the Asian Tour during a profitable golfing career that countless players would give their most cherished putter for.

Yates will be the first to admit that he hasn’t dedicated his life to the sport but, hey, when you’ve earned well over $1.5 million, attracted long-standing sponsors and live the kind of life that would even have Reilly saying ‘crikey, that’s nice’ you can’t knock his approach. “Other players are very golf, golf, golf,” said the father of two. “It’s the No 1 priority. I’ll admit, I’ve been very easy-osey about golf. It’s been a hobby and luckily enough I’ve made some very good money out of it. My problem is I’ve never had that much dedication. It would have been totally different if I didn’t have any sponsors or money. Going out with no money and trying to support your family? My heart beat would be a lot faster than it is just now. It’s a very tough living and not many make it. I’m almost in semi-retirement. I’m still playing on career earnings on the Asian Tour but that exemption was going to run out this year. I needed to get my finger out and start playing a bit more and finishing seventh was a massive step towards keeping my card.”

A former assistant at the Royal Burgess in Edinburgh, the well-travelled Yates has knocked off wins at a variety of levels in a variety of places including Germany, Malaysia, Korea, China and Thailand. He’s never played in a major but he came close back in 2004 when he found himself in a four-way play-off for a tee-time in the Open at Royal Troon during an International Final Qualifier in Kuala Lumpur. Yates would make a name for himself, but not for golfing glory. “I was booked on a flight to go skiing and the qualifier had been disrupted by storms,” he recalled. “There was a lot of farting about and I was saying to the officials ‘we need to get this play-off started’. I was about 15-feet from the pin and another guy was 12-feet but another storm came in and they halted play even though we were wanting to finish. I left my marker on the green and went to the airport. Not long after, I got a call from the officials saying ‘Simon, where are you? We’re resuming play?’ I said ‘I’m just about to get on a plane. Thanks, but bye’. That was it. About three months later I was playing the Korean Open and Ernie Els came up to me and said ‘Simon, what the hell were you thinking? You go skiing instead of trying to qualify for the Open?’ I just laughed. I never look back and say 'I wish I’d done this or I wish I’d done that'. I make a decision and I stick to it.”

On the pistes, on the fairways or on the raceways, Yates’s decision-making has to be decisive. “I done car racing for six years,” he added. “It’s funny, half the people in Thailand know me for doing that and the other half know me from playing golf. The sports I have done are all very different. When you finish skiing you are just so tired. Golf produces a fantastic feeling when you’re in contention and your heart is going. When you win a race and burst over the line in a car it’s just ‘yes’. Car racing is a pure reaction sport but golf is the hardest sport people can play.”

In his own laid back way, though, Yates has made it look easy.