Nothing says ‘it’s Scottish Cup semi-final weekend’ quite like plastic tumblers in the local. For those of us who are billeted in the vicinity of Hampden Park, the simple pleasure of nipping in for a galvanising gargle becomes a fairly cheerless affair of clenched-teeth muttering and mumbling as all manner of libations are served up in a variety of flimsy, squidgy receptacles that are about as sturdy as the dead sea scrolls. Even folk ordering a cup of coffee amid this wearisome window of glass-free guzzling are forced to gulp it down from a recyclable cup, presumably in an effort to prevent a repeat of the great skinny latte riot of yesteryear when Celtic and Rangers fans ran amok in the city streets while shaking their fists at each other like Gareth Hunt shoogling a few Nescafe beans in his clenched digits.

It’s back to normal now, of course, and in the far more civilised world of golf, Jordan Spieth will be hoping it’s business as usual when he loups back into the saddle after his Masters mishap. The 22-year-old is giving this week’s Valero Texas Open in his home state a miss but you can bet your Texan snake boots that when he does reappear the questions about meltdowns and chokings will get tossed about in wild abundance.

In the boggled-eyes of many, Spieth is in the midst of a crisis and his unfortunate quadruple bogey during the final round of the Augusta showpiece has generated the kind of agonised wailing you’d get when you’re charged £3.35 for a pint of mead in a synthetic goblet.

In this age of frantic hysteria, there is simply no calm middle ground and the scrutiny is unrelenting and unforgiving. In the week after his Augusta agony, Spieth’s name cropped up in a quite baffling mix of events. On the US Presidential campaign recently, the blustering Donald Trump took a pop at the political past of Mitt Romney and suggested he had ‘choked like Jordan Spieth’ during the last election race while Alan Stubbs, the Hibernian manger, even flung a golfing reference in the other week when he declared that his team wouldn’t crack under pressure like the young American. There were probably weekend warriors at the Glencruitten spring medal saying ‘aye, poor auld George somehow ‘Spieth-ed’ it on the home stretch when he found out he had a chance’.

All of a sudden Spieth, from being the boy wonder who could do no wrong is now the fragile boy for whom things went wrong.

The problem, of course, is that everybody has these ridiculous expectations of sportsmen and women and when they don’t live up to this accepted level of majesty, then it sends the earth birling and careering off its axis. It was the great Bobby Jones who said “no one will ever have golf under his thumb” as he highlighted the fluctuating fortunes of this great game and how there is never such a thing as perfection in this furiously fickle pursuit. Spieth had been riding the crest of a wave but the vagaries of golf finally caught up with him. It happens to the greats and it’s par for the course. “Through it all, there have been tough losses and there surely will be more,” conceded his caddie, Michael Greller, at the weekend as he tried to temper the fever with calming reason.

There are times when we demand the best of everything and we want it all to suit our own ideals. Take Andy Murray, for instance. People make whimpering judgements that he’s a bit miserable because he doesn’t smile very much. If the masses had their way, he’d have to turn around after every winning point and give a little wink to the camera while making comedy parp-parp musical gestures with an imaginary trombone.

The phrase ‘choke’ is one of sport’s run-of-the-mill epithets and nonchalantly directed at anyone who appears to buckle under the often intolerable pressure of top level sport even though the folk who usually suggest or write this kind of stuff probably couldn’t stand the pressure of the garden hose while dousing the herbaceous perennials.

In golf, it is a lazy, derisive term and one that simply fails to take into account the fact that occasional lapses – and collapses – are almost woven into the very fabric of this mystifying, unpredictable game. And the best thing about it is that the next tournament provides another chance to turn it all around.

Now, can I have my pint in a proper glass please?