Apart from, say, the absence of a free lunch, nothing gets the golf writers into a fankle quite like annoyingly late weekend tee-times.
For a start, it scuppers our gourmet tea of egg and chips washed down with a bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild.
The Genesis Scottish Open draw on a Saturday and Sunday has always been a bit of a scunner as it is dictated by the TV executives in the US of A.
That means, of course, that the leading group during the third round does not blast off until 3:35pm.
Now, that may suit Hank and Cynthia switching on in Massachusetts over a late breakfast, but it tends to go down like a sack of spanners with the increasingly crotchety scribblers on this side of the pond.
You could imagine, then, the mood in the media centre when Mother Nature decided to meddle in affairs, the east coast haar rolled in and play in round three was suspended when the early starters were barely through six holes.
The delay eventually lasted for some two-and-a-half hours. If that initial 3:35pm tee-time for the final two-ball induced flustered groans of despair, the revised draw for the resumption of play informing us that the last group would head out at 6:15pm generated the kind of wailing you would get with a malfunctioning angle grinder.
After two opening days of shimmering sunshine and blue skies that had the VisitScotland high heid yins cooing like turtle doves on a first date, day three could not have been more different.
The temperature plummeted, the sun said, ‘sod this’ and everything was as grey as a Victorian prison.
“We had this haar from the word go,” said Miguel Vidaor, the long-serving DP World Tour tournament director who is well used to parrying and jousting with the meteorological menace and mischief that is par for the course in this wonderful outdoor pursuit.
While some players suggested it may have been unplayable from that word go, Vidaor offered an official view on affairs.
"It's been playable, marginal, but the rule is players are not necessarily entitled to see the ball landing or the flag of the hole,” added the Spaniard.
“But for a tee shot on a par-four or five, for example, they need to be able to see the contours of the bunkers or any penalty areas or the tree line. For an approach shot, it's bunkers around the green and the pin flag.
“It was ok up until 10:20am, then the fog came a little bit thicker, especially on the higher parts of the golf course. On holes five, six and seven it became very thick to the point where it was not playable.”
Once the players were hauled off the links, all we could do was twiddle our thumbs into calloused stumps.
At least the paying punters had the bars of the tented village to while away the hours in.
The golf scribes were tempted to join them, but we all had pages to fill before deadline during an exercise in creative writing that featured more padding than the shoulders of Krystle Carrington’s jacket in an old episode of Dynasty
As for the players? “I had some nice tomato and pepper soup and dried my clothes a little bit with a blow dryer,” said the 2025 US Open champion J.J Spaun, who was one of the early starters and did eventually finish at a decent hour with a three-under 67 which lifted him onto a five-under aggregate.
Weather disruptions may be an almighty pain in the you-know-what for all and sundry but Spaun takes them with a nonchalant shrug. In fact, he embraces them.
When he won the US Open last year, the first major crown of his career, he used the suspension at Oakmont to compose himself after a torrid start to his final round before re-emerging with vigour and eventually beating Robert MacIntyre to the title by two shots in a thrilling finale.
“I like delays,” added the 35-year-old from Los Angeles. “I had one at the US Open, and it worked out for me. In a sense, it’s a way to reset.
“Being near the bottom of the leaderboard here is different. You’re not feeling those leaderboard nerves (as he was at US Open), so you almost get too relaxed.
“But I think I did a good job of staying sharp during the delay and I came out after and played well.”
A few other early starters played well as they made hay while the sun didn’t shine.
Mac Meissner birdied four of his last five in a 64 to jump to eight-under while his American compatriot, Johnny Keefer, also had a 64 to move to 10-under.
On thing that refused to move completely was the bloomin’ haar. It lingered around and eventually led to play being halted for the day just before 8pm.
Rory McIlroy, the joint halfway leader, was probably delighted when he heard the klaxon.
The world No 2, who won the Scottish Open title here in 2023, had dropped just three shots in his first 36-holes as he established a sturdy foothold at the top of the order.
On day three, though, he leaked three stokes in his first seven holes as he slithered off the summit.
With The Open Championship coming up at Royal Birkdale, and the quick turnaround that it demands, the last thing the players would have wanted was a marathon Sunday at the Scottish Open.
But that’s what they were facing. So were the golf writers. Any egg and chips left?
