Why is Scottish golf so worryingly below par?

We only have two players in the world’s top 100 and it’s been almost 17 years since a Scotsman won a major. Here, Sportsmail asks can our game find...

AQUICK glance at Callum Macaulay’s personal website offers a powerful testament to t he fact that a career within professional sport is a life within a life; a harsh environment where t he normal chronology of events is powerless to resist the ruthless nature of elite competition.

In the space of a few short weeks in the summer of 2008, Macaulay had won the Scottish Amateur title at Carnoustie and played a starring role in the Scotland team that romped to a nine- shot victory in the Amateur World Championships at Royal Adelaide in Australia, before successfully gaining his card for the European Tour at the very first time of asking.

The victory in Australia, in particular, was made all the more impressive by the fact that Scotland had beaten into second place an American team containing the notable talents of Rickie Fowler and Billy Horschel. He had the golfing world at his mercy. Or so it seemed.

The following few years would see the careers of Fowler and Horschel soar to irresistible heights, with Ryder Cup brilliance and the $10million FedEx Cup standing as redoubtable proof of their ability.

The career of Macaulay, however, took an entirely different trajectory.

On his website, he wrote a blog which detailed the week-by-week progress of a young man passionately chasing his dream of a life on the European Tour. But a spate of patchy results makes it clear that all did not go to plan. Then, in January 2013, it all caught up with him.

‘Well, I have completed possibly one of the most difficult trips in my golfing career,’ Macaulay wrote at the time. ‘I spent a whole month in South Africa and, unfortunately, I missed all four cuts.

‘I am carrying a little baggage in my head at the moment,’ he continued. ‘ As you can imagine, golf is a tough enough sport as it is, but with the added stress of feeling like you are playing for your mortgage, it’s even tougher.’

That blog post still stands as the most recent entry on Macaulay’s website. Not a peep since then. Something cracked, as he admits himself, and he fell out of love with the game.

‘I just had to get away from it all, absolutely everything,’ he now tells Sportsmail. ‘The pressure of it all just wears you down.

‘ Constantly worrying about results, missing cuts and p*ssing away money left, right and centre travelling around on flights and staying in hotels.

‘No matter how good you think you are, or what funding or coaching you’ve had, nothing can prepare you for trekking out to the likes of Russia all by yourself, playing terribly and spending a fortune into the bargain.

‘That’s what counts the most — how you respond to your setbacks. For the past year, I’ve been driving a taxi just as a way of supporting my wife and son, but I’ve got my card sorted to get back on to the Europro Tour for 2016 and I’m thoroughly looking forward to it.’

The current reality for Scottish golf is that Macaulay’s story could quite easily apply to an entire generation of players. For the second consecutive season, none of our players progressed from European Tour Final Qualifying School in November, which again l eaves Scott Jamieson as the youngest Scot on Tour at 32 years old.

We have nobody — not one solitary player — in his 20s currently on Tour. Contrast that to our neighbours in England, who can boast 13 players in the top 100 of the world. Yes, they are a bigger country, but the fact that six of those 13 players are in their 20s points to something more than just sheer weight of numbers.

By any estimations, there is a monumental generation gap in our game, magnified further by the fact that we are supposed to be the Home of Golf. Yet Macaulay believes it is precisely that kind of attitude which may be hindering young Scottish players.

‘Some people seem to think that we have a God- given right to produce t he best players in Scotland just because we invented the game, but it doesn’t work like that,’ he said.

‘I remember what one of my old mates at college in America told me. He said: “You guys in Scotland might have invented the game — but the rest of the world perfected it”.

‘He was only joking and trying to wind me up, but I suppose there is actually an element of truth in it.

‘OK, we invented the game and we’ve got the best links courses in the world, but your head is in the sand if you think that gives us the right to be the best at it. Just because you have milk bottles at your door doesn’t mean you have a cow in the kitchen.

‘The reality is that the rest of the world has caught up with us — and overtaken us in a lot of cases. Every country around the world can now boast a couple of world- class players. We need to wake up to that and up our game, rather than moan about it.’

AS of 2010, an initiative from sportscotland and Scottish Golf (formerly the SGU) saw more than £1million put forward over five years to help fund and nurture the talents of our elite amateurs.

Five years later, though, where are the results? Michael Stewart won the Scottish Amateur in 2010 and then had an outstanding triumph in the South African equivalent in 2011. Yet he now finds himself scrapping around the Europro and Challenge Tours.

Similarly, Bradley Neil won the British Amateur title at j ust 18 years of age in the summer of 2014, yet now finds himself in a si milar scenario t o Stewart, struggling to find his feet in the professional ranks.

Clearly, producing talent at amateur level is not the problem. The season past in 2015 proved that. Scotland won the European Amateur Team Championships, won the Boys Home Internationals — along with boasting a record total of eight players inside the top 100 of the World Amateur Rankings.

It is what they do when they leave the unpaid ranks where things seem to be going awry, that crucial period of transition where so many seem to be falling by the wayside.

Speaking in November, Scottish Golf ’ s performance manager Steve Paulding said: ‘I think the players need to gain experience on the Challenge Tour first before making t he s t ep up to t he European Tour. The gap is bigger than some people realise.

‘We are working hard to instil an improved attitude, work ethic and performance level into our amateur players to ensure they realise what is required, backed up by evidence of the numbers they need to achieve, to give themselves the best chance of success.’

Paulding might have stopped short of explicitly saying that some Scottish players have an attitude problem, but his comments of trying to ‘improve’ it tell you all you need to know. Macaulay, though, did not mince his words on the subject.

‘There’s absolutely nothing more the governing body can do to help these guys bridge the gap to the professional ranks,’ he said. ‘The funding they put in place is first-class and they take the guys away every winter now for training in places like Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

‘The problem is that a lot of younger guys these days have a know-it-all attitude and are in far too big of a rush to turn professional. There have been a lot of naïve young golfers in Scotland

over the past f ew years and they’ve been clueless about the standard required.

‘There are a lot of guys now who haven’t achieved anything at amateur level, but then decide to turn pro. You have to wonder what makes t hem t hink t hey can compete at an elite level without having proved themselves as amateurs first.

You only have to look at the attitude of some of the guys over the past few years who have left the amateurs to turn pro. Compare their attitude to their actual results. Being brought down a peg or two and given a reality check would have done them the world of good.

‘ I can relate to it in a sense because, although I certainly wouldn’t say I was arrogant, I definitely didn’t listen to all the advice that was given to me.

‘I had a sit- down with the best Scottish golfer of all-time back when I was just breaking through. Colin Montgomerie told me not to change anything about myself: not my swing, my coach, my preparation — nothing. Just trust what had made me successful.

‘I listened to that for a while but, after a few months, I started making wee changes here and there and then, before I knew it, I was totally changing my swing, trying new clubs, changing my practice routine and it all just became a huge mess. That’s where I went wrong.

‘ But I ’ ve l earned f r om my mistakes and I’m in a far better place mentally to make a good go of things this year. I’m settled with my family now and can’t wait to get back out there.’

With three Scots in the victorious Walker Cup team of 2015 — Jack McDonald, Ewen Ferguson and Grant Forrest — it is to be hoped that a new wave of talent is now emerging to right the wrongs of a previous generation.

In terms of how they go about doing it, though, they could do a lot worse than listen to the advice of Macaulay.