With Scotland�s two biggest golfing weeks of the season coming up, upon whom do you pin your patriotic hopes? Where is the Andy Murray of the fairways?

With Scotland's two biggest golfing weeks of the season coming up, upon whom do you pin your patriotic hopes? Where is the Andy Murray of the fairways?

It's a difficult question to answer. Until now there has always been a Sandy Lyle, a Sam Torrance, a Paul Lawrie or a Colin Montgomerie to fly the Saltire, and before them an Eric Brown, a John Panton or a Brian Barnes. Of that little lot only Lyle and Lawrie actually won the Open but at least there was a genuine hope in each and every year.

Lyle and Montgomerie, for sure, will be in the fields at the Barclays Scottish Open at Loch Lomond next week and then the Open Championship at Turnberry, but at ages 51 and 46 respectively their recent form promises little.

While the door can always be left open for a surprise, and Montgomerie was runner-up to Tiger Woods as recently as four years ago, it would be unreasonable to look to either in expectation any more.

Gary Orr, aged 42, is our top world-ranked player at No.127 and he hasn't won on tour since 2000, the only year he played all four rounds in the Open, though his prospects on home territory at Loch Lomond are better. Our next best player, Alastair Forsyth at No.141, isn't even in the field at Turnberry.

That is the first battle - simply making the starting line for major championships, and Scotland haven't been doing too well at that this year. Lyle was the only Scot in the Masters field, Martin Laird, who will make his professional debut in Scotland at Loch Lomond, was the lone Scot in the US Open while Forsyth, courtesy of his joint ninth place finish at Oakland Hills last year, is currently the only one in the upcoming US PGA Championship.

That is because for the first time going into any Open Championship we haven't any players in the world top 100 let alone the top 50 who have starts in all four majors.

At least there is an awareness now that a major reason for the plight Scottish golf finds itself in is that no organisation within the fragmented administration is taking full financial responsibility for the transition from amateur/club professional to tournament professional.

Of course, not all top amateurs are going to make it, but last year Bill Lockie, the former national coach, counted 30 high-quality players who had fallen by the wayside in recent years and that was far too many to account for purely on the grounds of chance or ability.

The Scottish Golf Union regard their primary function at the high-performance end as producing players to win top amateur events. In that respect their record is excellent, but not many have bridged the gaping chasm on to the European Tour.

While Scotland's victory last year in the Eisenhower Trophy, the world amateur team championship in Australia, was a fabulous result it is far from the holy grail. It remains to be seen whether the team of Callum Macaulay, who has earned a European Tour card and is in his rookie year, Wallace Booth, who will play at Loch Lomond next week as an amateur, and Gavin Dear, can establish themselves as tournament professionals and provide an inspiration for others.

You might think that the PGA in Scotland, the route that Lawrie took, would be a good breeding ground for tournament professionals yet the argument you hear officials putting forward is that their principal role is not that at all but to provide playing opportunities for members.

That means, for example at Gleneagles last week in the Scottish PGA Championship, the tees were put forward to accommodate the wishes of the majority of the 159-player field who had no aspirations to be tournament professionals and would have found the championship tees too tough.

The set-up was disappointing to players like Craig Lee who is trying to get back on to the European Tour. You might imagine that if the Scottish PGA were trying to foster talent they would have put the tees right back and answer any complaints by suggesting players either practise more or, if it is proving too difficult to break 80, to consider not playing in it at all.

If the One Plan for Golf objectives, to which the SGU and PGA are signatories - and they include having a Scot in the 2014 Ryder Cup team - are to be met then a tough stance has to be taken. In the amateur scene, it may mean taking decisions such as diverting funds from the expensive-to-run home internationals or Scottish Area Team Championships to preparing players specifically to make it through tour school.

The blazerati would throw up their hands in horror at the very idea but if Scottish golf is to be taken forward it must be looked at as a whole and not one limited area such as male amateur golf. For sure, there will no Scot in any future Ryder Cup team if we don't get players into the world top 50, and there won't be any players in the top 50 if they aren't making the European Tour, and staying there.

The No Limits report commissioned by Winning Scotland Foundation and completed earlier this year called for a nucleus of young talent to be fast-tracked to the top. It is the kind of carefully thought out idea that needs to be looked at seriously yet the challenging report is currently gathering dust through a combination of lack of finance and an absence of administrative will.

But let's not get too negative. Since the heydays of Lyle and even Lawrie the bar has been raised several times. You have to improve simply to stand still, and efforts are being made.

The Scottish Government-backed Clubgolf programme to introduce every nine-year-old in Scotland to golf and then identify and foster the most talented ones will, hopefully, bear fruit a decade hence, Lawrie is spearheading his own initiative that is bringing talent like David Law to the fore while introduction of the Scottish Challenge is helping to bridge that amateur-professional gap.

There are seven Scots so far in the Open and that is up on recent years. They are Lyle and Lawrie as past champions, Montgomerie from his place in last year's European order of merit, and qualifiers Laird, Orr, David Drysdale and Richie Ramsay while Forsyth joins a phalanx of Scots at Loch Lomond.

To return to the original question: upon whom do you pin your hopes?

Drysdale is the form horse, lying highest on the Race to Dubai order of merit at No.43, but while he could contend in the Scottish he is making his Open debut, so my choice from this band of outsiders is Ramsay.

Since winning the US amateur crown he has progressed through the Challenge Tour, via that bridge provided by the Scottish Challenge, to his current rookie year on the European Tour where he has appeared on leaderboards notably at Celtic Manor in the Wales Open.

He is a driven, focused individual who has never been overawed alongside such as Tiger Woods or Padraig Harrington. There are rough edges, but he is a proven winner at several levels, his graph steadily upward and, coming from Royal Aberdeen, is at home on the links.

Odds of around 300-1 for the Open give the harsh reality to his chances. Meanwhile, within the Scottish set-up, much work remains to be done.