It’s just another of life’s humdrum habits. There you stand with your head gazing down at a mobile phone and your fingers furiously tapping at the screen like Little Richard thrashing away at the piano as you batter out a text message riddled with spelling errors, odd emoticons and the reckless use of the acronym ‘Lol’.

When Duncan Stewart pinged a high-tech bulletin over the Atlantic to his old pal, Russell Knox, the response that came beeping back to him highlighted just how different their golfing lives were.

“I texted Russell the other month when I was playing at Winterfield in the East of Scotland Alliance,” recalled Stewart, who went to the same Jacksonville University as his fellow highlander Knox. “I was just asking him what he was up to and he came back and said he was having a practice round at Augusta as a build up to the Masters. The following weekend he was going to the Superbowl. He’s kind of living the dream as they say. Russell caddied for me at the Amateur Championship a few years ago. Did I think then he’d be where he is now? Probably not but the first time I practised with him over there a few year later the difference in his game was remarkable.”

Knox has shot off into a different golfing stratosphere these days and his win in last season’s WGC HSBC Champions was worth around $1.4 million. Back on planet earth, meanwhile, Stewart has to make do with more modest sums as he attempts to clamber up the professional ladder. Help is at hand, of course. Yesterday, he was one of seven players confirmed as this year’s members of Team Scottish Hydro, the support package offering financial aid to a number of Scottish Challenge Tour players and Ladies European Tour campaigners. It was perhaps fitting that the launch took place at those oversized steel steeds, the Kelpies. What do they say about gift horses?

Stewart probably spoke for everybody at yesterday’s gathering when he said, “without support you’ll really struggle out there on the tour.”

Along with David Law, Paul Shields, Jack Doherty, George Murray, Sally Watson and Pamela Pretswell, the Team Scottish Hydro package takes a huge financial burden off the shoulders. Stewart, the 31-year-old from Grantown-on-Spey, is now in his third year of the programme although, after a largely disappointing season on the Challenge Tour in 2015, he did fear that he would “be kicked into touch.”

Relieved and grateful to be back on board, the assistance still hasn’t stopped him sourcing extra funding. A few seasons ago he started an innovative share scheme in which he basically, but not literally, sold off chunks of himself to investors, one of whom was the former Open champion, Paul Lawrie. It is £100 per share and there are 300 shares available. “Last year was the first time people had lost a bit of money on it,” admitted Stewart, who slipped down the order of merit following a profitable 2014 which saw him finish 20th on the money list and just outside the promotion places to the main European circuit. “But by and large people have stuck by me and that gives you a lift. The share scheme gave me the feeling that I was not just playing for myself, but I was out there playing for all the shareholders, too. As much as I wanted to succeed for myself I wanted to succeed for them and repay everyone for believing in my ability.”

Those at Team Scottish Hydro, meanwhile, are putting their faith and funds in a seven strong group which includes newcomers, Law and Shields. Law, the 24-year-old former Scottish boys and men’s amateur champion, picked up a morale-boosting victory on the MENA Tour in Spain last week ahead of his promotion push on the Challenge Tour while Shields, who was knocked back for funding from the Scottish Golf Support initiative earlier in the year, now has valuable backing as he begins his first season on the second-tier circuit.

Pretswell, the former Curtis Cup player, continues to find her feet on the Ladies European Tour and her goal for 2016 is already set. “To break into the top-10 of the order of merit,” she said.