The Claret Jug, a few pounds of solid silver that's worth its weight in gold ...

or something like that.

Like a sumptuous, belching medieval banquet, Scotland's feast of golf roars on in the cradle of the game this week but, my goodness, it's an almighty guddle as the Scottish Open blends seamlessly into the Open Championship and we continue to thrash away at the increasingly brittle laptop like Little Richard clattering at the keys of a piano.

One day you're checking out of a shoogling caravan in North Berwick, the next you're checking in to the student digs in St Andrews and sharing a communal bathroom with certain scribes whose idea of daily grooming is a quick swab of the jowls with an old sock that's been dipped in the shaving water.

It's a hectic fortnight when you have to clench the teeth, pinch the nose, gird the loins and demonstrate the kind of genuine grit that used to be the reserve of the ancient mariner. It's probably worse for the players.

Here in the home of golf, it's Jordan Spieth who is the talk of the Auld Grey Toon. And no wonder. Another week, another win for the 21-year-old Texan. Following his victory in the John Deere Classic on Sunday - an event he won in 2013 to become the first teenage winner on the PGA Tour since 1931 - Spieth was on a red-eye charter across the Atlantic and those bleary eyes were very much fixed on the Claret Jug. In his last 20 events worldwide, he has claimed six wins, 11-top threes and 14 top-10s.

Whatever way you set yourself up for an Open Championship, there can be no better preparation than winning. In the increasingly fevered build up to the game's oldest major, just about everybody has flung their opinions into the pot. I'm convinced I got a voice mail from my dear mam that other night suggesting that 'Spieth really should be honing his game in the links arena' before telling me off for not replying to her recent text message.

With the Masters and the US Open already sitting on the mantelpiece, Spieth is the first player to come to a St Andrews Open with the first two parts of the Grand Slam in the bag since Arnold Palmer in 1960. Eager observers, prodded by salivating scribblers, have been saying he should be doing this or that and he should be playing here not there. Of course, there's no E=Mc2 formula for golfing success and proper judgement can only be made once this week's showpiece is done and dusted. Spieth is very much his own man and he'll do it his way. "I really didn't care anyway," he said with a smile when asked about sacrificing valuable reconnaissance time on the Old Course to compete in the John Deere event. "I came here for a reason, and we accomplished that reason."

That reason was to win. Spieth is a born winner and he can do that anywhere. His victories in the Masters, at Augusta National, and the US Open, at Chambers Bay, could not have been more of a contrast. One was on the most manicured piece of golfing terrain on the planet, with greens as smooth as freshly laid marble, while the other was on a bamboozling parched track that probably had the worst putting surfaces in the history of golf.

St Andrews this week had has been given a drenching for above after a good honest wet Scottish summer. The Old Course will be soft, slow but immaculate. "That's kind of nice having come from here (the John Deere)," said Spieth, who has never played a competitive round on the Old Course and has only 18 holes under his belt from a casual hit about prior to the 2011 Walker Cup. The great worthies will always say that the Old Course demands a longer apprenticeship, that it takes time to learn its abundant nuances. Yet Spieth is a quick learner as his rapid rise illustrates. History may not be on his side, of course. Each of the past four Open champions have all tuned up with the links examination of the Scottish Open the week before. Indeed, the last player to win the Claret Jug having played in the John Deere Classic was Todd Hamilton at Royal Troon back in 2004.

One thing that will be in his favour, though, is his superb putting which remains the envy of every player on the tour. There will be plenty of pin positions that will almost be impossible to get within 20-feet of here on the Old Course. From those kind of distances, Spieth is one of the best in the business.

Despite his tender years, Spieth is known for having a wise head on very young shoulders. On his captivating journey into golf's upper echelons, we eagerly wait to see if the Old Course will prove to be kids stuff for the sensational Spieth.