Stuffing a turkey is hardly one of life’s most dignified endeavours, is it? Funnily enough, that whole unwieldy, yuletide palaver reminded me of a letter I once received from a reader telling me where I could shove my column.

Now that said turkey has been devoured, and we’re all witlessly pawing at the television remote control and lolling and belching on the couch like a walrus hauling itself along the shingle, it’s a perfect time to a have a look back at one or two golfing moments from 2023.

Can you open another tin of Quality Street, please?

MASTERS FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONTENTMENT

Amid the division, debate, rancour and recriminations of golf’s civil war, the Masters provided some comforting escapism from the general tumult.

This golfing rite of spring had it all. Even good auld Fred Couples made the cut at 63 as cooing observers overdosed on great dollops of syrupy schmaltz.

Phil Mickelson’s spellbinding 65 on the final day, meanwhile, was like a soothing wander down memory lane. His defection to the LIV series, and all the incendiary comments he made in the process, had torched his reputation as he backed away from the PGA Tour with all the grace of a man reversing a forklift truck into a pallet of Ming vases.

For a few giddy hours on Masters........

© Herald Scotland