I was listening to the radio the other day and they were discussing the Japanese word, kuchisabishii, which basically describes the mindless urge to snack out of sheer boredom while gazing forlornly into a fridge and hoping something tasty will miraculously appear.
Funnily enough, I tend to adopt a similarly glaikit expression of sighing futility when I open my laptop in the hope that some inspiration for this column will magically materialise.
“Empty again I see,” snorted the sports editor as he read these opening couple of paragraphs before sticking his entire heid into the fridge in an act of utter desperation.
We’re lucky in this game, of course, that there’s always plenty to write about.
Over at the Asian Games, for instance, the reigning Scottish
Open champion, Tom Kim, won golfing gold and, as a result, gained an exemption from 18 to 21 months of military service which is mandatory for most Korean males before the age of 28.
Remember when you were a young ‘un and would dreamily say to yourself, “this to win The Open” as you hovered over a putt?
Presumably, our Korean friends do something similar and whisper, “crikey, this to avoid national bloody service” as they size up a tricky six-footer. That would certainly focus the mind, wouldn’t it?
Tom Kim wins the Asian Games Gold Medal in golf 🥇
— JM (@josh_mills_) October 3, 2026
MILITARY EXEMPTION 🇰🇷 pic.twitter.com/HkaWIWqlpn
On the home front, meanwhile, it was a decent weekend for the Scots in various parishes.
Over in the US, Nairn’s Sandy Scott, who earned promotion to the PGA Tour the other week after a maiden victory on the Korn Ferry Tour, made it back-to-back wins on the second-tier circuit and jumped to No 1 on the order of merit.
This thrilling purple patch has also propelled him to a career high of 87th on the world rankings.
At the K Club in Ireland, meanwhile, GB&I’s team of club professionals, skippered by St Andrews man David Scott and featuring the Scottish duo of Graeme Robertson and Gavin Hay, romped to a record 16 ½ - 9 ½ win over the USA in The PGA Cup for a first victory since 2017.
In the last month or so, the Americans have been beaten in the Walker Cup, the Solheim Cup and now The PGA Cup. They’ll be seething. If there was a transatlantic team tussle involving the golf writers, I’m sure we’d thump them in that too.
As for happenings in the Dunhill Links Championship? Well, Michael Stewart’s sterling efforts over four days at St. Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns gave him a share of fourth and a cheque for almost £168,000.
It was a delightful story and a nice reward for a player who has grafted away on so many mini-tours down the years, he could probably write a Lonely Planet guide to them.
Stewart, of course, was another player to be championed as our next big thing – yes, there have been a few of those - as he ended a stellar amateur career and made the pro plunge back in 2011.
When he signed with ISM, the management firm which had just lost Rory McIlroy but still had thoroughbreds like Darren Clarke, Lee Westwood and Louis Oosthuizen in its stable, the company’s gaffer, Chubby Chandler, waxed lyrical about Stewart.
“He has proven himself at the highest levels of amateur golf, showing tremendous grit, character, and skill,” said Chandler. “He has all the ingredients to succeed at the next level.”
The grit, the character and the skill remain. Getting to that next level, though, is never easy. It’s not guaranteed either in a furiously hard and fickle competitive environment of daunting strength in depth.
Some players hit the ground running when they join the paid ranks, others take time to find their feet and plenty fall flat on their faces. There’s no one size fits all model for success in this very individual pursuit. Stewart, at 36, will agree with that.
Golf, of course, can be a game of great longevity and one peppered with tales of late bloomers who finally reap the fruits of their persistent, defiant labours after years spent chipping away at a variety of coalfaces.
Stewart has been at a few of those down the years. In fact, he’s probably got honorary membership of the Miners Welfare Club. And he’s not just grafted at golf. This correspondent caught up with Stewart not long after the Covid pandemic and he’d been working for a company that specialised in hand sanitisers as his golf schedule had been ravaged.
Given that we all went about in those bewildering years constantly rubbing our own hands clean like a demented Lady Macbeth, Stewart was kept busy.
“They had an NHS contract to supply 190,000 bottles a week,” the former Scottish Amateur champion told me at the time. “I got my forklift licence, I loaded stuff on to wagons, I made deliveries, I cleaned up the yard. There was so much uncertainty about when or where I’d be playing golf again, I became convinced that my job would be in a chemical factory, not as a pro golfer.”
Here in 2026, though, Stewart is a pro golfer galvanised. Having initially turned down the chance of another outing on the DP World Tour in this week’s Spanish Open – his top-10 at the Dunhill earned him that spot - Stewart has changed his mind and will now head to Madrid.
The big opportunities continue to come knocking. In this business, you’ve got to grab them. Now, is there anything left in that bloomin’ fridge?
Nick Rodger is a correspondent for The Herald in Scotland.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: In golf, big opportunities continue to knock. These guys are answering | Opinion
