To the sun-kissed (sometimes) Ayrshire coast and the bejewelled burgh of Troon where, I am told, a golf tournament is in progress. To Troon, which Willie McIlvanney, a native of nearby Kilmarnock, said is a town where even the seagulls talk posh. To Troon where, even as I write, ScotRail’s entire fleet of trains is disgorging middle-aged men in their tens of thousands with the look on their faces of pilgrims hurrying to the Hajj.

Because golf is a serious business which its devotees suggest is akin to a religious experience. You often hear pundits refer to the “golfing gods” in whose gift it is to send some unfortunate players’ balls into bunkers and brambles and others directly into the hole from a distance of 300 yards. When you see golfers muttering to themselves, as so many do, they are asking forgiveness for their many sins in the hope that one of the gods will deliver them from a water trap.

Golf is just a game, insist those who are clueless. It is, of course, much, much more than that. Anyone who knows anything about anything is aware that it is on golf courses and in their clubhouses that everything that matters is decided. It is not at Holyrood or Westminster where the power lies; it is on the fairways of St Andrews and Muirfield and, yes, Troon. Here men – and it’s still invariably men, with curated beer bellies and purple complexions – sort stuff out. I would be more specific but as a woman I am not privy to their deliberations. Suffice it to say, as a........

© Herald Scotland