As we haul ourselves into a new year with about as much gusto as the three-toed pigmy sloth embarking on yet another futile mating ritual, it’s time to have a final keek back to 2023 and dish out the annual awards for golf’s quirks and curiosities.

Astonishingly, these back page honours have now been going for 14 seasons. In that time, they have attracted an impressive array of critical appraisals ranging from ‘a crushing irrelevance’ to ‘a complete affront to the 240-year history of The Herald’. It’s this kind of nourishing, morale-boosting feedback that keeps us going …

THE CARBUNCLE AWARD

If you thought the town planners of the post-war era created some hideous monstrosities, then think again. In the world of golf, prize giving ceremonies are littered with a variety of ghastly plooks on a plinth that would make Cumbernauld centre look like the Piazza Navona.

Whether it’s a carved peculiarity here or a sculpted absurdity there, the sight of the chief executive of a tournament’s headline sponsor handing over a quite bewildering bauble to the flabbergasted champion can be as awkward an exchange as a flustered husband hastily paying for some lingerie at an Ann Summers checkout counter.

The winner, then, of the 2023 carbuncle award comes from down under and the prize........

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