Stephen Gallacher raring to go after wretched 2016

There was the death of his mother-in-law and the death of his grandmother. And then there was the injury to the wrist, where the pain shot right up his arm and threatened to do his head in.

“Dubai last year, I shouldn’t have played,” he recalls. “I almost chipped it round. I was hitting shots I’d never hit before in my life purely because I couldn’t get through the ball. I felt like I was embarrassing myself.

“I went to Malaysia, got an injection, which got me through it. Then I went to Australia and couldn’t grip the club.”

The wrist had been weakened by the plane of his swing.

“When you’re hitting down and into golf mats for 20 or 30 years then something gives,” he says. “There are two wrist surgeons I kept hearing about. In their field, one was Ronaldo and the other one was Messi. I got put right. Had an operation, put my feet up.

“It was almost a blessing being out because Helen’s mum had died and at least I was around to support her. It was a rough old year on and off the course. You don’t miss playing for a while, but the hunger comes back.

“I was still out of action in the summer, I got up for the first tee-shot of The Open, watched Monty peg it off and sat the whole day, just me and my son. After that I said to the wee man, ‘You know what, I’m getting back into this’.”

Gallacher salvaged something from the wreckage of 2016 late in the year; tied for 12th at the British Masters, the same again in Portugal, a top-10 in Australia. It’s time to start putting it together again.