I was watching the tele the other night and an advert for a furniture company popped up to smugly declare that it was the “proud sponsor of Christmas.”

It’s a pretty bold claim, isn’t it? Presumably, nothing symbolises the nativity, peace on earth and goodwill to all men quite like 20 per cent off a braided jute pouffe?

Anyway, ‘twas the column before Christmas and all through the Rodger house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

Well, that was the case until this correspondent broke this heavy silence of inertia with a futile sigh and muttered, ‘what the hell am I going to write about this week?’ The inclusion of an opening paragraph up there about a furniture advert has merely underlined this state of uninspired torpor.

I’m very much aware that I’ve been writing a heck of a lot recently about LIV Golf, people defecting to LIV Golf and the current tumult involving LIV Golf. Let’s face it, we’re all a bit scunnered of this LIV lark, aren’t we?

All of which means, I’m going to leave it for a few hundred words before I write about LIV again just to give you a breather.

On a cheerier note, it may have caught the attention of some of you avid followers of the amateur game that the bigwigs at Scottish Golf have performed a complete u-turn on plans for a........

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