The celebrated, decorated Harry Vardon was never short of a pearl of wisdom. “Even in our darkest hour, we must remember; never despair,” the bold Harry once suggested in an observation that conjures up images of this hapless scribe nervously mulling over the prospect of endless calamities and farcical possibilities in those glowering, gloom-ridden 60 minutes before a tee-time. “No matter what happens, keep on hitting the ball,” was another of Vardon’s sturdy statements of jaw-jutting fortitude which, in many ways, perfectly encapsulates the defiant ineptitude of those of us who eke out a fairly modest existence in the well-populated, fertile fields of golfing futility and fatalistic tendencies.