HALF a smile flickers across Andy Murray's face when it is put to him that he may need to receive the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award by live video link-up from Florida again this year.

Somewhere in a conference room in London, where the network's executives are gathering to stage manage the glitzy bash, one suspects the mood is rather darker.

It is four years now since Lennox Lewis joined Murray at his home in Miami to present the Scot with the prize for third place in 2012, a rather paltry return for his Olympic gold and US Open win.

When the heavyweight boxer famously failed to pick up on his autocue, throwing the timing out on a live show which is notorious for its rammed schedule and overruns, Murray, quick as a flash, instead presented himself with the award.

Read more: Andy Murray: It is always nice to be honoured for my service to tennis, even if I feel too young to get a knighthood

Things ran far more smoothly when Martina Navratilova was drafted in to present him with the winners' prize in front of the same swimming pool 12 months later, then when he joined the victorious Great Britain Davis Cup team in Belfast last December, but the fact we could be in for a repeat viewing of it all next month as Murray closes in on a record third triumph speaks volumes about the Scot. More than anything, it paints a picture of a young man who still has his priorities straight.

While the 29-year-old is obsessed with sport - he spent the hours before his World Tour Finals showpiece watching a re-run of the Andre Ward-Sergey Kovalev fight - and likes to surround himself with other sports stars, two factors have influenced his decision to decline the invite to attend this year's event at the Genting Arena in Birmingham on December 18.

Firstly, coming off the strongest six month period of his entire career, Murray is prepared to leave nothing to chance as he aims to strengthen his hold on the No 1 ranking and add to his tally of three Grand Slam wins. That means maximising his training block time in the company of Kyle Edmund and Leon Smith out in Miami this December.

Read more: Andy Murray: It is always nice to be honoured for my service to tennis, even if I feel too young to get a knighthood

And secondly, what little down time he has built in his schedule in the next month or so is already spoken for. His dad Willie is marrying his long-time partner Sam Watson in a fortnight's time so his son will dutifully travel north of the border twice in successive weeks to attend first his stag do and then the wedding itself. Family still comes first.

"I've got my father's stag do next weekend then he is getting married the following weekend," said Andy. "So I will go up to Scotland on Saturday, come back down to London for four or five days then go back up to Scotland. Then I go to Miami the day after my dad's wedding."

Typically for this extraordinary family, even those guarded private family moments will also be something of an alternative sports personality of the year do. In addition to Andy and Jamie, a third Team GB Olympian on the scene for both the stag and the wedding will be Andy Butchart, the 5,000m runner. The man who finished sixth behind Mo Farah in Rio is the long-term boyfriend of his fiancee's daughter Caitlin.

There have been no shortage of stunning Scottish, and British, performances in this Olympic year, even if not all of them will make the BBC shortlist. Murray says he has "no idea" who will win the award, but singles out the Brownlee brothers, in part because he sees echoes of what he and Jamie go through in these triathletes.

Like Murray, Alistair won his second Olympic gold medal in the Rio triathlon during 2016, but even more notable perhaps was the World Series event in Mexico where he saw brother Jonny swaying across the track and in clear distress in the closing stages of the race and compromised his own performance to haul him over the line.

"Andy [Butchart] did great, he did amazing," said Murray. "But the Brownlee brothers, what they have done throughout the whole year is pretty amazing and I see that as pretty cool because I have a pretty similar thing with my own brother. Obviously the thing that happened a few months after the Olympics was pretty cool and a nice thing to see as well, that it is not just a win at all costs mentality. I have no idea who will win it but in an Olympic year it is always tough to pick because there are always so many great performances."

Magnanimous as ever, Murray will win this award and so he should for a season where he has ripped up the rule book and disproved everyone who ever said he would be a bit part player in this greatest-ever era of world tennis. While he would never buy into all this airy talk of The Era of Andy, it is to be hoped that he has done the hard yards and now can enjoy the broad sunlit uplands for a while.

Read more: Andy Murray: It is always nice to be honoured for my service to tennis, even if I feel too young to get a knighthood

Claiming a maiden Australian Open title, a venue where he has lost five times in the final, is one early-season target to get his teeth into, while staying top until the Spring at least seems a realistic prospect considering he has far less points to defend than Djokovic courtesy of a few off colour performances in Indian Wells and Miami.

The Scot has never liked losing, at anything, but the bad news for the rest of world tennis is that he likes it even less than ever. Having won his last 24 matches, it is not a sensation he experiences too often these days.

"When I was always fourth in the world, I never liked losing, but it didn't have the same kind of impact because I wasn't number one and I wasn't like holding on to something," said Murray. "Fourth place in the world is still great but it isn't number one. Maybe now, especially the last few months when I have had that goal there and have been trying to get there, I want to stay there. I don't feel too high just now, I feel good, and I feel motivated to keep going. I have enjoyed the last five, six months the most I have in all of my career. That is probably because I have won a lot. So I just want to keep going."