Even the septuagenarian Peter Alliss would probably struggle to remember the last time two Scottish players won in the same week.

And with that in mind, BM is thrilled and delighted to doff its cap to Martin Laird and Paul Lawrie, winners of Bay Hill and the Sicilian Open respectively. To paraphrase the football commentator, "Sean Connery, Braveheart, Duncan Bannatyne - your boys gave out one hell of a beating!"

In fairness we should point out that the Sicilian Open is golf's equivalent of the Zenith Data Systems Cup - with the Masters just over a week away, everyone who is anyone in the world of golf is already Stateside sharpening their game for Augusta - but Lawrie's golf throughout the week was magnificent, and would have won him a shiny new pot for the mantelpiece no matter where in the world he'd been playing.

Martin Laird's victory in Florida, however, was a different matter. At one of the biggest early season tournaments the Scot pulled off the toughest of all victories: the one where you make a complete Horlicks of the whole thing, but somehow claw your way back into contention and finish the job.

The US-based player's late birdies on 15 and 16 to get back into the hunt were one thing, but it was his 70ft two-putt on the last - which is like lagging a golf ball around a Wall of Death - that truly impressed.

Will he be the saviour of Scottish golf?

Maybe, but frankly, BM doesn't much care either way. For the moment we're just luxuriating in the pleasure of seeing a Scot - or any golfer, for that matter - who has the type of balls that don't have 'Titleist' stamped on them.

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Lawrie and Laird might be flying the flag for Scotland at the moment, but one man whose Saltire is well and truly packed away at the moment is Sam Torrance.

The former Ryder Cup skipper has been axed from the BBC's commentary team for the Masters, and as a result has withdrawn his services for The Open.

What a relief for everyone. Alliss apart, the BBC's golf coverage has been sleepwalking for years, and Torrance is one of the chief culprits.

The Scot was superb when he started out, but of late he seems to be working under the catastrophic misapprehension that merely possessing a voice as rich and meaty as a Fortnum and Mason fruit cake means he doesn't have to do any actual work.

He's the king of the caption readers, simply repeating what any non-visually impaired viewer can already see, or more often read, for themselves. Analysis? Nope. Opinion? Pass. Insight? Don't make us laugh.

There's a reason why Alliss has endured: it's not his quirky sense of humour, or his Marmite personality. It's his (currently unrivalled) ability to point out things not otherwise obvious, and his refreshingly honest judgements on golf's stars.

With disastrous anchorman Gary Lineker long since replaced (much for the better) by Hazel Irvine, all we need now is for primary school teacher-wannabe Ken Brown to get lost in a bunker and Wayne Grady (the pretender to Torrance's caption-reading throne) to be sliced into the tall grass. Then maybe the BBC's TV golf team can start adding something to the pictures they receive, rather than giving you endless reasons to turn the volume down and turn up Iain Carter and co on the radio.

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Bunker Mentality has owned plenty of golf videos - or 'DVDs', as the kids seem to call them these days.

But only two of them have it ever watched more than once.

The first was perhaps the greatest golf instruction video of all time: a Tony Jacklin masterpiece (presented by Bruce Critchley, no less) that taught us everything we know about golf technique.

(That's not much of an endorsement, by the way: BM's current handicap stands at a shaky 14.)

The second is the DVD of the 1986 Masters, an astonishing event which celebrates its 25th anniversary next week. When did a golf tournament ever provide so much entertainment?

There was Nick Price's astonishing 63 (including an amazing horseshoed putt on the last for a 62) that will probably always remain the course record; there was the sight of Seve chunking a bread-and-butter iron shot into the water on the 15th; the first of Greg Norman's three final-day Major near-misses that year; and, best of all, Jack Nicklaus's outlandish back nine of 30 to win his sixth green jacket.

BM is slightly too young to have stayed up to watch the incredible events unfold - its youthful mind was more concerned with trying to finish the Panini sticker album for Mexico '86 - but has seen it all happen many times since.

If you've never had the pleasure, the silver anniversary of possibly the best golf tournament ever marks as good a moment as any to try it for the first time.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

One of Colin Montgomerie's defining characteristics has always been that he never knows how to walk away gracefully.

Would American fans have taunted him so brutally for so long had he not risen to the bait, every time? Would he have been lambasted over his failure to win the 2006 US Open at Winged Foot if he'd simply admitted that he made one bad swing on the 72nd fairway? Would the whiff of cheating still follow him had he simply used the word 'sorry', loudly and often, after replacing his ball in what was palpably the wrong spot at the Indonesian Open in Jakarta in 2005?

The Scot demonstrated this blind spot in his personality yet again with his response when confronted with Sandy Lyle's suggestion that Monty could be Ryder Cup skipper once again in 2014, at Gleneagles.

"I am sure I will be involved because of my affiliation with Gleneagles, whatever that may be. But if asked again, and because of my involvement for and with the Tour over the years, I would have to accept. Only if they wanted me," he said.

No, Colin. No. The correct answer is: "There are plenty of other excellent candidates who all deserve a chance to lead."  Or: "I had the most incredible week of my life as captain of the European team at Celtic Manor, but that honour deserves to be passed on to someone else."

We've nothing against Monty, or his captaincy skills. But the thought of him potentially tarnishing the defining moment of his career by trying to repeat it four years on is frankly horrifying.

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INTERESTING THEORY OF THE WEEK

Phil Mickelson has admitted that he's going to intentionally play the wrong type of game for the Shell Houston Open at Redstone this week. Instead of playing the course as it demands, he will use the event as a sort of extended practice session for Augusta.

"Houston is not going to set up well for me," said the defending Masters champion. "The problem for me there is there is so much water that pinches off the tee, and I'm just not going to hit 3-woods off the tee and play that course strategically the week before Augusta.

"And then when it gets windy and I'm trying to hit high balls for Augusta and it requires a low knock-down shot, it's not going to work."

Ah-ha - that must explain why we've seen Phil playing so many bump-and-run shots and drilled punches under the wind at the calm, target golf-fest that the Scottish Open at Loch Lomond has been over the last few years.

Or at least, we imagine we ought to have seen those shots. Maybe we just blinked. A lot. And maybe you did too.

From the top of the golfing tree to the grubby roots of the game which bind us all together, Bunker Mentality will be there: It’ll tees up slices of news, and send them fizzing back down the neatly-trimmed fairway of opinion with more punch than a Tiger 2-iron stinger, more spin than a Mickelson wedge – and more bottle than John Daly.

Eurosport