If there’s one thing 24-hour news does so well, it’s doom and gloom. If you, yes you, are currently listening to the news while casually leafing through this supplement then I can guarantee that said news will be 57 per cent more downbeat than it was when you started reading this article just a few seconds ago.

Even the imminent, heroic arrival of the coronavirus vaccine will probably come with an additional syringe-full of deflating negativity. “If you spend too much attention to it, you’d think the world is going to end and nothing will ever be right again,” sighed Richie Ramsay of the grim tidings that have bucketed down in great torrents over the past few months.

There is seemingly light at the end of the tunnel. Or is it just a different shade of darkness? After a trying year, Ramsay, like everybody, has tried to make the best out of a fairly rotten spell. “When you look at the season, it was something of a luxury to be actually playing,” said the three-time European Tour winner. “Huge numbers of people have lost their jobs or couldn’t work, but we still had opportunities.”

While the disrupted European Tour season is working through its penultimate events in Dubai and South Africa this week, Ramsay remains in Edinburgh having brought his campaign to an early halt. An avid family man, the 37-year-old Aberdonian is cherishing the added time at home while taking the chance to kick back, take stock and mull over life as a touring professional.

“For the last 13 years, I’ve been able to travel the world and do it without any restrictions,” he said of this golfing merry-go-round. “One week, you are off to Dubai, then to Malaysia and maybe Australia. To have that freedom of being here, there and everywhere is something you took for granted. The impact of the coronavirus will make me consider things. In my early 30s, I had some auto-immune disorder related to my eye so I’m in a higher risk category.

“The perception is that I’m pretty young and healthy but in reality I need to be more cautious. I’m not saying I’m anxious but it does prey on your mind as a touring golfer. That will be an element of life going forward, until we get this vaccine.”

Ramsay has always been a deep-thinking, erudite fellow. Ask him, for instance, what club he hit into the fourth after a round and he’ll often respond with the kind of intense, chin-stroking analysis you’d get if you consulted Socrates for a yardage. Golf is his passion and his profession. This year of restrictions and limited outings has allowed him to spend more time on another side of the game that really stirs his imagination.

“Course design has always been a great passion and I’ve been speaking to a lot of people involved in golf architecture and doing a lot of reading this year,” he said. “In the future, I would like to do some consultancy work. I look around at some courses and think there are people taking decisions to make severe changes and it’s a shame as they are destroying some of the world class golf we have.

“Some clubs are talked into changes that shouldn’t happen. If you’re in the New Town in Edinburgh, and you have all this lovely architecture, would you take a sash and case window out and put a plastic one in? You’d maybe go into the building, redo the walls, the floors but not tamper with the main structure and the feel of it. That applies to golf courses.

“One of things I’ve learned is that the best architects park their egos at the front door. I’d love to do some co-design and bring in my ideas of playability, strategy and character. You want to play a course and then feel that you’d love to go back. There are plenty of courses where you’d say ‘it wouldn’t bother me if I didn’t play it again in my life’.”

In the week that the European Tour and the PGA Tour unveiled a new strategic, if sketchy, alliance, Ramsay, is well aware that the creation of a world tour is looming. “Moving forward, there’s not been a better time to be in the world’s top-50,” he said. “There will be a real separation point when it (the world tour) happens.

"They could be playing for £15m and the rest of us playing for substantially less. The top players will benefit the most obviously. But you have to look after them. They bring in the money. But it’s going to be a balancing act. And not an easy one.”