I’ve never been a great fan of New Year’s resolutions. In fact, I view them with the same kind of wary scepticism you’d adopt if the Duke of Edinburgh pulled up beside you in a car and said, “hop in, I’ll give you a lift?”

By all accounts, January is meant to be a dry, dieting, disciplined month of self-improvement and bodily renewal but one which invariably turns into a joyless slog through mounds of kale, moss, twigs and birdseed before you collapse onto the couch in pitiful surrender and shovel a packet of Fondant Fancies down your thrapple with a sigh of relieved resignation.

If only this scribe could be as health conscious as Colin Montgomerie? In one of the more startling revelations of the golfing weekend, the bold Monty announced that he had cut back on sugar and was enjoying the myriad benefits of pilates classes in an eye-brow raising declaration which conjured up some deliciously appalling imagery.

There won’t be a better spectacle in golf this year than the sight of big Colin writhing on a mat and contorting himself into a pelvic curl …

IN, OUT SHAKE IT ALL ABOUT

The 2019 season is well underway and the decision by golf’s rule makers to allow players to keep the flag in while putting has caused more huffing and puffing than Monty shoehorning himself into his leotard.

In, out, in, out? It’s the R&A and USGA’s equivalent of bloomin’ Brexit. The general consensus among touring pros tends to involve the word “weird”. Physics graduate, Bryson DeChambeau, took his analysis a tad further, meanwhile.

Asked if he would be an in or an out man recently, DeChambeau replied with an answer that just about left the golf writers choking on their own brains.

“It depends on the COR, the coefficient of restitution of the flagstick,” he said. Funnily enough, that’s exactly the response old Ronnie gave before the Cowglen winter texas scramble.

According to the celebrated putting guru, Dave Pelz, “every player should leave the flag in” while he cited a piece of data which suggests that putts going nine feet past have a 188 per cent greater chance of dropping with the flag in.

That’s fair enough but one high profile instance of a player watching a seemingly straightforward putt rattle the flag and stay out at a costly price will no doubt settle the in or out decision.

And for many, the idea of putting out with the flag still in just simply doesn’t look right anyway. Rather like Monty at his pilates …

IRISH AYES ARE SMILING WITH SCOTS CONNECTION

A first win in over three years in Abu Dhabi at the weekend left Shane Lowry sporting the kind of jubilant grin that could’ve spanned the Persian Gulf.

The canny, chatty, down-to-earth Irishman may not have the svelte frame, sartorial sharpness and gallus swagger of some of his contemporaries but he remains a fine example of the one size doesn’t fit all charm of golf.

Key to Lowry’s development down the years has been the Edinburgh exile, Neil Manchip, who has been his coach and confidant for over a decade. As the national coach with the Golfing Union of Ireland, Scotsman Manchip has watched the likes of Lowry, Rory McIlroy and Paul Dunne come through the amateur ranks and prosper as professionals.

His mantra is simple. “Help individuals become the very best they can be,” said Manchip. With his drive, discipline and dedication, as well as an appreciation of what he does for a living, Lowry continues to make the most of his talents. Not every golfer who made the amateur to professional transition can say that …

MIND THE GAP AS MONEY TALKS

Over the past couple of weeks, both the men’s and women’s European Tours have stopped off in Abu Dhabi.

As part of the lucrative Rolex Series, the fellas were playing for a whopping purse of $7 million. The good ladies, meanwhile, were battling for a sliver of a more modest $290,000.

Amid another gender pay gap debate that was stoked up by this - a deeply complex issue that certainly won’t be solved on social media - Meg MacLaren, a Ladies European Tour player, suggested that the male golfers in Abu Dhabi should have been asked the question: “do you have any thought or concern about the fact your female counterparts were playing a week ago, at a course 20 miles from here, for four per cent of your prize fund?”

And had they been posed such a question, what kind of responses would have been delivered? Probably one or two dreary, box-ticking platitudes, to be honest. If they were moral arbiters and champions of women’s rights, they’d all pull out of the Saudi Arabia event next week.

It’s not the fault of the players on the Ladies European Tour that their earning potential has been ravaged by a lack of events, sponsorship and administrative direction.

It’s lamentable and harsh, but the male players shouldn’t be made to feel guilty ...