You’ll no doubt be seeing a lot of mentions of ‘abrdn’ over the next few days. Admittedly, it looks a bit like the remaining tiles of letters you could be left with in the muttering, dying embers of a game of Scrabble as you try in vain to fashion a last gasp triple word score to overhaul Doreen’s erudite accumulation.

But it is, in fact, the funky new name of the title sponsor of this week’s Scottish Open.

For those of you not clued up in the cut-and-thrust of business branding - and I include myself in that merry band -  abrdn used to be Aberdeen Asset Management before they merged with Standard Life to become Standard Life Aberdeen. And now the company is called abrdn. But still pronounced Aberdeen. Fit like?

Over the course of this week’s championship, then, you’ll be reading about the abrdn Scottish Open which, to a casual observer of austere newsprint, resembles a typographical error this scribe would inadvertently conjure as a result of dozing off at my laptop, clattering my forehead off some random keys then waking with a startled, drooling jolt and carrying on as if nothing had happened.

According to those savvy, sassy marketing executives, however, this sleek, dynamic reinvention will bring “a clarity of focus” and a “renewed sense of purpose and drive” to the company. Funnily enough, those were once the sports editor’s exact words to me as he caught me stealing 40 winks under my desk while prodding me with a sharply folded P45.

While it may have the look of the conundrum at the conclusion of an episode of Countdown, at least the sheer brevity of the term ‘abrdn’ shouldn’t give the golf writers any great hassles as they rattle out the daily dispatches from the front line.

In a modern day sponsorship world of garbled monstrosities in which golf events are ‘Presented by’ this or are ‘In Association with’ that, I almost choked on my own brain a few years back attempting to shoehorn the LPGA Tour’s ‘Lorena Ochoa Invitational Presented By Banamex and Jalisco It Happens Within You’ into the paper.

The Scottish Open sponsor’s name may have lost one or two vowels but one thing this week’s domestic showpiece is not short of is star quality.

In a field headlined by new US Open champion and world No 1, Jon Rahm, The Renaissance Club will also roll out the welcome mat to four other members of the global top-10, namely Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Xander Schauffele and Rory McIlroy, who wasn’t actually very impressed by The Renaissance two years ago but is ready to give it another chance.

For the limited number of fans allowed on site this week, it’s the kind of mouth-watering line-up you’d savour when the doors of a medieval banquet swing open. 

And there’s better news for the footsoldiers attending. Organisers are aiming to be finished by the back of 5pm on the final day, which is a heck of a lot earlier than the pre-covid norm during which the last group didn’t even tee-off until 15:58 on the Sunday afternoon to suit a lucrative US television deal. 

Golf fans, by and large, are a fairly stoic old bunch but asking them to trudge around the links until yon time on a Sunday night took a lot of that devotion for granted.

With a stellar cast and a whopping $8m purse, the Scottish Open continues to flex its muscles. Back in 1937, the fledgling Scottish Open, scheduled to take place the week before The Open of that season at Carnoustie, was cancelled. It had been played in 1935 and 1936 but wouldn’t reappear on the scene again until 1972.

“I was told that the Royal & Ancient club would not allow the tournament to be played just before The Open in the same neighbourhood,” said the Scottish Open organiser A E Penfold, the heid honcho of that ye olde ball manufacturing company, in a report penned in The Glasgow Herald at the time.

These days, of course, the prized slot in the schedule the week before The Open is as cherished as a double dose of the vaccine. That date in the diary remains very much the Scottish Open’s domain but, a decade ago, we all wondered if that would be lost.

When Barclays ended its backing after the 2011 event at Castle Stuart, there were genuine fears that the national championship, not for the first time in its history, would wither on the vine while the circling vultures behind other big tournaments were eyeing that pre-Open week.

The intervention of the Scottish Government and Aberdeen Asset Management – sorry, abrdn – saved the championship. Ten years on, it boasts the strongest non-major field in Europe.

With three Open Championship spots on offer for the leading finishers this week not already in the Royal St George’s draw, let’s hope some of the home hopefuls can seize the opportunity in this last chance saloon.

As it stands, Oban’s Robert MacIntyre is the only Scot heading for Sandwich in what would be the home of golf’s lowest representation ever. He could end up feeling as lonely as an abrdn without the letter E.