ONE of the perils of staying in a swanky hotel for a night or two is that the various fixtures and fittings of the room merely serve to illuminate your own fumbling, muddling incompetence.

Take the showers, for instance. Shuffling into the opulent embrace 
of the cubicle, you peer up to see a vast ceiling-mounted faucet and eagerly anticipate being drookit by the tumbling majesty of its downpour while nonchalantly ignoring the variety of other aquatic accoutrements which are dangling hither and thither like a holster of water-spouting weapons that King Neptune may have worn.

And what tends to happen when you to switch the thing on? Yes, that’s right. The water comes thundering out of the one shower head you weren’t expecting it to and makes you shriek like a pantomime dame before forcing you to embark on a frantic, gasping, tap-twirling palaver as great torrents cascade and erupt in triumphant abandon like the fountains outside Caesars bloomin’ Palace.

Here in the world of golf meanwhile, we’re always waiting on our next young hopeful to make something of a splash but it doesn’t tend to happen that way. It’s a familiar scene, of course. 

A promising amateur, with an impressive pedigree and more medals than a deranged despot, makes the leap into the professional scene with high hopes of hitting the ground running only to stumble along like an ailing participant wheezing towards the line in the London marathon.

Getting off to a good start and establishing a sturdy foothold on the pro ladder is key so it was encouraging to see Grant Forrest post a top-five finish in his first event of the year on the European Challenge Tour in Turkey. Ok, so it’s hardly an auspicious occasion that requires us to hang out the bunting and commission a series of commemorative dish cloots. 

Golfers from south of the border, for example, won on the Ladies European Tour and the Challenge Tour on Sunday while another was runner-up on the main European circuit. There’s a major catch up job for the Scots to do but we have to hope that these small early steps can lead to more sizeable leaps. 

At a time when there is a considerable Scottish generation gap on the men’s European Tour – there is not a player under 30 on the circuit and the average age is 37 – we are constantly searching for some green shoots to cling to.

For any young golfer making the transition from the fairly molly-coddled environment of the top end of the amateur game to the frenzied cut-and-thrust of the pro scene, getting an early injection of confidence in those formative stages can be crucial to the development. 

Forrest’s fellow Scot, Bradley Neil, will vouch for the truth in that observation. Neil, the former Amateur champion from Blairgowrie, finished 11th in Turkey at the weekend as he continued to find his feet after a couple of seasons of transitional tumult. 

In his first campaign in the paid ranks in 2015, the highly talented 21-year-old made just two cuts in 11 events. The following season, he made the weekend just three times in 14 tournaments and admitted that his general morale had suffered  a serious dunt.

That spiral of woe can become crippling but having made the cut in the one main tour event and the two Challenge Tour events he has contested this season, Neil continues to steady the ship.  

Forrest, meanwhile, has hopefully given himself a solid foundation upon which he can build. His first event as a pro, in last season’s Dunhill Links Championship, landed the former Scottish Amateur champion and Walker Cup player a handy cheque for around £21,000 after a solid showing.

“You have to turn pro when you’re playing well, so there was no point doing that last year,” said Forrest, who sensibly aborted his initial launch when others may have ploughed on regardless.

The 23-year-old didn’t manage to earn a European Tour card at the qualifying school final but getting a full category for the proven breeding ground of the Challenge Tour, where the robust standard helps to nurture a hard competitive  edge, will hopefully stand him in good stead.
On the whole, it was a decent weekend across a variety of fronts 
for Scottish golf. Pamela Pretswell continued to knock on the door 
of a first win on the Ladies European Tour with a top-five in the Mediterranean Open.

On the amateur scene, Aboyne teenager Shannon McWilliam continued to make impressive strides as she finished joint runner-up in an international field at the Helen Holm Scottish Women’s Open Strokeplay Championship at Troon.

A couple of swallows don’t make a summer, of course, but perhaps 
the younger generation are ready to take flight.