Golf hasn’t been part of the Olympic programme since 1904 so you would have expected that the commencement of the men’s golf tournament today would be a time for celebration.

As a kid, Jason Day didn’t have it easy growing up. He was born into a poor family in Australia and his mother worked multiple jobs, even taking out a second mortgage on their family home, just to put him through school.

Bernhard Langer’s ability to consistently overcome his career struggles with the putting yips are so well documented, that the smart money would always have been on him finding yet another technical solution to this year’s changes in the laws surrounding anchoring — but it is not as simple as that.

Last year, Jordan Spieth posted one of the best seasons in the entire history of golf when winning five times.

This week, the final major of the year, the PGA Championship returns to one of America’s most famous venues, the Lower Course at Baltusrol.

All sports have their great days and after the recent debacle surrounding the Olympics, the world of golf needed something positive this week.

In a sport with many big egos, tunnel visions and platitudes, it will be wonderful today to witness two of the “good guys” in the game, Phil Mickelson and Henrik Stenson, going head to head at the Open Championship.