Sandy Lyle flies solo as other Scots wilt over the years amid Augusta’s azaleas

I n the coming days there will be a flurry of tributes paid to Sandy Lyle. The 65-year-old’s confirmation that he will no longer play on the Champions Tour suggests at the very least that the Masters this week will be the last sight of Lyle in a competitive domain. Lyle is tired of the road and no wonder. Augusta National, where he famously triumphed in 1988, seems a fitting place for goodbye.

Lyle’s slide towards well-earned retirement gives cause to ponder another, less illuminating theme. What has become of the great Scottish golfer?

Lyle has a spot in the Masters this week on the basis of prior achievement but no other player, amateur or professional, from the home of golf will join him in the field. Austria has representation. So, too, Poland and Belgium. A Norwegian, Viktor Hovland, sits inside the world’s top 10. Yet Scotland, a country steeped in the game, cannot provide a contemporary golfer for the opening major of the year.

No less alarming as the fact is the general indifference towards it. Indeed it feels as if Scotland is either not bothered by the failure to earn seats at golf’s top table or has no serious interest in addressing it. There should be embarrassment that no Scot can earn his way into the Masters via circumstances other than what occurred 35 years ago. Scotland has around 550 golf courses and 200,000 registered players. This is not a minority environment.

The glass-half-full analysis would be that this represents merely a snapshot in time. That Scotland will soon have a raft of golfers jousting for the game’s premium honours. Yet the harsher reality may well be that it has been left behind as golfers in other countries advance through professional levels. Ireland, a natural comparison for