Amid the feverish panting and pandemonium of the Andy Murray maelstrom, one of the more surprising outcomes of the wonder of Wimbledon was that there was actually enough paper left over to print this column on.

As trees were felled at a quite thunderous rate to fuel the furious frenzy and our esteemed leader, Alex Salmond, clapped himself giddy like one of the Thunderbirds being operated by a demented puppeteer, some of us were trying to refocus our spellbound, intoxicated minds on other events on the sporting calendar.

In case you had forgotten, the Scottish Open swings into action at Castle Stuart this week for the last time before the bandwagon rumbles along the A96 to Royal Aberdeen next season. If any venue deserved a rousing send-off, then it's this one.

Already, dare we say it, the signs are good. Given the meteorological trauma that was inflicted on Castle Stuart when it first staged the domestic showpiece in 2011, most of us tend to keek tentatively at the weather forecast in the days leading up to the event with the same, hands-over-the-eyes approach you'd adopt during a guided tour of an abattoir. Fingers crossed, it looks as if Mother Nature has hopped out of the right side of the bed and is in a sprightly mood. Not that the organisers are taking any chances, mind you.

"The tented village will all be under cover," revealed Peter Adams, the European Tour's director of international championships. "There will also be garden areas around the outside, so you can either be inside or outside depending on the weather.

"It's similar to the Heathrow Terminal 5 concept in the sense that everything you need is in the one central point."

Let's hope that the championship now takes flight. With seven major winners, 21 Ryder Cup players and an abundance of past and present European Tour champions, the fare on offer near Inverness promises to be highly appetising. From the diet of largely one-dimensional golf we are accustomed to week-in, week-out on the tours, where balls are blasted off tees and then tossed up into the air towards something akin to a dartboard of a green, the Castle Stuart links should provide a more varied, inviting menu.

The course is maturing all the time, there is now more definition and, given the half decent spell of weather we've had, the chances of bouncing, running fairways and reasonably slick greens has been greatly enhanced. If the gods can muster up just enough of a mischievous wind, then Castle Stuart will finally be presented in the way it should be. Only really once in the previous two stagings of the championship have the gusts been a factor and that came on the final day last year ,when only five players managed to break 70.

The well-documented words of Graeme McDowell, who suggested that the Scottish Open had "lost its prestige", have cast something of a confused shadow over affairs. Speaking to Herald Sport at the weekend, Paul Lawrie outlined what most folk thought, when he highlighted the domestic event's abundant attributes; a £3m purse, a strong headline sponsor in Aberdeen Asset Management, and a links venue in the much sought-after slot the week before the Open.

Everybody knows that the European Tour is facing major challenges in its traditional heartland. While cash-laden nations of the Middle East and the Far East are dangling huge carrots, some of the countries in the circuit's own backyard are wheezing on behind as the well of sponsorship and financial backing dries up. This is a tough period and the tour's leading lights should be standing up and lending their support.

If they're not playing at Castle Stuart then at least they shouldn't knock it. It makes the usual "we all want to do our bit to support the European Tour" soundbites ring a little hollow. With most of the stars now mainly based in the USA, where the riches on offer on the PGA Tour would embarrass a Sultan who'd just won the lottery, the last thing the hard-pressed, hard-working high command of the European Tour want to hear is downbeat assessments of one of the richest events on the schedule, given how difficult a task it is to attract and maintain significant investment.

Apart from the four majors, the WGC events, the new, improved Race to Dubai Final Series and the Scottish-based Dunhill Links Championship, the national Open packs plenty of financial clout. With NBC broadcasting the tournament to a potentially vast US market for the first time, this week is one of boundless opportunity and growth.

Try telling the 19 Scots competing this week that their own Open has lost its prestige. There's not been a home winner for 14 years but, given the current feelgood factor sweeping the nation, this would be the ideal time for another Scot to secure sporting success on a Sunday. We'd better start planting a few more trees, just in case.