Well, here we go again eh? Another year has birled by and apparently it’s time to think of something that you enjoy doing and reluctantly resolve to stop doing it because all those finger-wagging, healthy living tyrants with their rosy-cheeked sense of self-satisfaction insist that you’re doing too much of it. Drinking, smoking, cross-dressing? You name it, it all has to be flung out the window as you incarcerate yourself in a high security cell of shuddering abstinence and muddle on through the month with all the enthusiasm of a dejected cow being prodded towards the gates of an abattoir. It’s enough to drive you to drink, or fags or perhaps even those stilettos lying enticingly in the airing cupboard.

To lift the general gloom, the 2016 golfing season, with a Ryder Cup to boot, is upon us and it promises to be a belter if 2015 is anything to go by. Of course, the problem with great expectations is that you expect these great things.

In this unpredictable game of fluctuating fortunes, you can only hope for the best … and if the best are at their best, then the campaign may be better than the rest. Jordan Spieth and Jason Day, ranked first and second in the world respectively, resume their budding rivalry in this week’s Hyundai Tournament of Champions. Rory McIlroy, the world No 3, won’t be in action but when this so-called ‘New Big Three’ get together for the first time in the not so distant future, the salivating will be on a par with a pack of bloodhounds at an unmanned butcher’s counter. In this era of hysteria and hyperbole, of course, there isn’t much middle ground. It wasn’t that long ago that folk were labelling Day a ‘choker’ after another major near miss – he had nine major top-10s before his PGA win last year - but now he can do no wrong. McIlroy, meanwhile, had, according to some observers, a “lost year” in 2015 after jiggering his ankle in the peak season but he still had a campaign that was illuminated by four wins. As for Spieth? Well, after his rousing assault on the Grand Slam, all the talk is about him carving out golf’s greatest ever career. No pressure there then.

Golf has always thrived when two or more powers collide. Rivalries can’t be forced and fabricated, though. Instead they develop over time and with 20-somethings like Spieth, Day, McIlroy and Rickie Fowler, time is certainly something that is on their side. The future of golf is here today so let’s just enjoy what’s playing out because you never know what the future will hold. In 2016, there will be plenty happening. Golf makes its return to the Olympics for the first time since 1904. Yes, it’s had it detractors and the palaver surrounding the building of the course in Rio, the fact that the event’s format will be run-of-the-mill 72-hole strokeplay and its addition to a jam-packed schedule means the PGA Championship will be held just a week after the Open has done little to dampen the general groans and girns. Then again, any event featuring the likes of Spieth, McIlroy, Day, Lydia Ko or Inbee Park will be worth watching and if the Olympic stage can provide some sort of a shot in the arm for the sport in terms of growing the game among a new generation then it will have served a worthy purpose. Prestige doesn’t happen overnight – unless you are in America where a new clubhouse at Sawgrass a few years ago was hailed by the owners as “giving us instant tradition” – but it evolves over the decades. In years to come, an Olympic golf gold medal may be as cherished as a major. You have to start somewhere, after all.

Just a couple of weeks before the Olympic hoopla, golf’s oldest major, the Open, will be staged at Royal Troon. Since the Royal & Ancient lifted its all-male membership policy in 2014, the winds of change that have blown through the game should have been accompanied by a Met Office yellow warning. Officials at Royal Troon have always maintained that the cordial relationship they have with neighbouring Troon Ladies Golf Club (they will be co-hosts of the Open this summer) makes them different from other all male clubs. Royal Troon, like Open venues at Muirfield and St George’s are in the midst of a membership review – St George’s completed theirs and allowed female members last March – and don’t bet against the Ayrshire club following suit before July’s showpiece. Both Royal Troon and the R&A will not want a repeat of the relentless, negative publicity that overshadowed the 2013 Open at men-only Muirfield but in these rampant, raging times of rapid fire condemnation, mass bandwagon louping and regular media-driven storms, they may have to gird their loins again if the status quo is preserved.

2016 promises much …and let’s hope it delivers. Now, where did I put those stilettos again?