I’m not a golfer, but it’s impossible to live in Scotland and not be aware of the sport. Even more so in Fife where every wee town seems to have its own course. Lundin Links – barely a blink as you drive through it – has two; one which is usually used for Open qualifying and the other, Lundin Ladies’.

St Andrews, of course, is littered with them, demand for the Old Course being so great as to be unsatisfiable. So, in addition there are the New Course, the Eden Course, the Jubilee Course, the Castle Course, the Strathtyrum Course and the Balgove Course – and those are only the ones run by the St Andrews Links Trust.

The Open Championship – if you’re being parochial you’d call it the British Open – is underway at the moment and so the place is transformed. You can’t move in the town normally for golf shops etc. so goodness knows what it is like at the moment. So much of a distraction is the tournament that St Andrews’s other modern attraction – the University – shuts down for the duration.

Myself and the good lady caught the preparations last week. A small army of mowers was shaving the first fairway.

On the sand just where the Swilken Burn finally flows into the North Sea there was a spectacular piece of driftwood. It almost looked like it had been sculpted.

From the links it looked like a sculpture of a cow but closer in more resembled a dinosaur.

You can see bits of the tented village in the second photo. It wasn’t quite in readiness but there were signs for banks and “Fish and Chips” and other stuff which I forget. It must be a huge money spinner – not all of it going to the town, sadly.

When the open is at Muirfield you can see the tented village from Kirkcaldy, gleaming whitely across miles of Forth estuary. The proprietors there call themselves “the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers” but I believe they don’t allow women to be members – which may not be quite so honourable in this day and age.

Of course in central Scotland you are never far away from a course on the Open rota. Carnoustie is only across the Tay estuary from Fife and both Troon and Turnberry are on the Ayrshire coast, no more than a couple of hours drive away. (You just can’t avoid golfing puns in a piece like this.)

St Andrews is a favourite place for myself and the good lady but we’ll be giving it a miss this week. I’m sure you see more of the action on the TV anyway. I’ve caught some of yesterday’s and today’s play and I’ll be watching the climax on Sunday. At least I’ll be out of any wind and rain.

World Cup. Final. Soccer City, Johannesburg, 11/7/10. aet 0-1.

Not a classic. Again, finals are usually far too nervy affairs for the football to be flowing.

Here it was the Dutch who were more nervous about losing than the Spanish, yet they could have won it if Arjen Robben had put their best chance away.

They were lucky to have eleven men still on the pitch after the first half which featured mostly anti-football. What a comedown from the days of Total Football.

Spain could bury teams if they had a taller forward line, got width and delivered accurate crosses. As it is they seem content to win 1-0. That’s four of those in a row now.

A sideline to the Spanish win is that Scotland once again have the opportunity to be crowned Unofficial World Champions when we play them during the next Euro qualifiers.

That is if someone else doesn’t beat them first.

And pigs fly.

Peter Mokaba Stadium, Polokwane, 17/6/10

The better team (by a country mile) won this game.

A France side which in retrospect was in decline even as long ago as when Scotland beat them twice in the last World Cup qualifiers, had no invention, no spark and looked disinterested.

Mexico by contrast were bright and fluid and constantly looked threatening.

France are out unless they hump the hosts and there is not a draw in the other game (or, if head-to-head results count before goal difference only if Mexico beat Uruguay.)

The TV pundits seemed to think Uruguay and Mexico might collude to draw and thus eliminate both Bafana Bafana and the French.

But….

Would you want to come second in this group?

Okay you would have got through but it would also mean most likely facing Argentina in the second round. (I can’t see Greece beating them to come first in Group B.)

As I write I have no idea how the talks between the Tories and the Lib Dems to form a “stable” government are going.

NIck Clegg is, though, treading dangerous ground. If he trades principle for a Cabinet seat and does not at the least get from the Tories a commitment to a referendum on a proportional voting system for Westminster elections and he subsequently actively props up a Mr Irresponsible premiership I suspect a large segment of the Lib Dem core vote will abandon them at the next election. Or before if any arrangement manages to last: there are elections to the Scottish Parliament next year, plus local elections.

Even with such an agreement many in Scotland may still do so.

BBC Scotland is tonight screening a programme titled Why Didn’t Scots Vote Tory?

I know 17% of those who voted in Scotland did actually do that very thing but why devote a programme to the subject?

I can answer the question in one word.

Thatcher.

It is almost impossible to overestimate the size of the scar her administrations left on the Scottish political psyche. The swing to Labour in Scotland on Thursday is a reflection of the abhorrence with which Scots voters still regard the possibility of a Tory government inflicting such depredations on the country again. It is almost in the nature of a folk memory. Parents probably imbibe their children with it along with their mother’s (or their formula) milk.

Similar feelings pertain in large parts of the north of England too – witness Rochdale staying Labour despite Bigotgate and a credible Lib Dem challenge.

Symptomatic of this feeling was a caller to a BBC Scotland phone-in with Annabel Goldie (the Scottish Tory leader) who asked apropos of a putative state funeral for the so-called Iron Lady, “Does she have to be dead first?” It can be found on the BBC iPlayer. It’s about 33-35 minutes in.

Elvis Costello perhaps summed it up best. (Warning. He swears in the preamble.)

Hampden Park, 3/3/10.

Totally meaningless for the future qualifying campaign of course, but a win’s a win and especially welcome for being the first in a home friendly for umpteen years.

Craig Levein may make us hard to beat again.

Can’t see us being easy on the eye, though.

Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Spain.

The last two in this list mean we’ve virtually no chance of qualifying.

Barring a miracle.

So Craig Levein has been given the poisoned chalice of Scotland manager.

Quite why he, or anyone, would want the job is a mystery considering the unrealistic expectations of press and public as revealed by their treatment of George Burley.

Yes, in the past Scotland qualified for five World Cups in a row (1974-1990) and six out of seven up to 1998 and haven’t managed that feat since even though the number of available places is now larger.

But don’t forget that a Scotland side littered with players we’d die to have now – Baxter, Law, Crerand, White (1961) and their successors four years later who beat Italy at Hampden when Greig, Murdoch, McNeill etc could be added to the roll call – failed in the attempt even though qualification was less lengthy in those days; albeit the 1961 vintage lost to the eventual World Cup finalists.

That run of six out of seven World Cups was an anomaly. A country the size of Scotland has no divine right to sit at the top table. Arguably even being in Pot Three in Europe is an over-achievement.

Look at the players listed above: do we nowadays have anyone fit to lace their boots? It’s no surprise we can’t qualify for anything. We’re simply not good enough. Organisation will only take you so far.

Times have changed. Time also to adjust expectations.

No matter who the new boss is (or was) he’ll have an almighty struggle returning Scotland to tournament participation.

Let’s just bask in being top of the list of unofficial World Champions. (Even if that’s only because back in the day we could beat England quite often.)

Cardiff City Stadium, 14/11/09

What can you say?

(At least there was some good news for the SPL yesterday, though.
A few of its clubs will be represented at the World Cup Finals next year, now that New Zealand have qualified.)

Hampden Park, 9/9/09

Excruciation over at last. But they teased us up until eight minutes to go.

So that’s it all over – barring the wait till the summer and England lose in the quarter finals. Again.

I suppose it’ll all ramp up once more in about a year when the Euro 2012 qualifiers begin.

We never learn.

Hampden Park, 5/9/09

They just keep doing it to us fans, don’t they? Stringing us out to the last game, torturing us with possibility.

Scotland probably will beat Holland now; just to extend the agony.

I’m astonished, though, looking at the groups that there is a genuine chance we won’t be ninth out of nine best second placed team if we do achieve it. (I did a quick subtraction of six points/two wins and there are several teams worse off than us.)

Call me a natural pessimist, but I still wouldn’t fancy our chances in a play-off even so.