The Scottish Golf Union will be quietly agonising at their Duke's headquarters in St Andrews today - or they should be.
Less than two months after winning the Home Internationals at Glasgow Gailes, a team representing the Home of Golf finished tied 44th in the World Team Championship for the Eisenhower Trophy in Turkey at the weekend.
The three-man Scots team ended up 40 shots behind the record-breaking American winners.
Only four years after the squad of Callum Macaulay, Gavin Dear and Wallace Booth won the Eisenhower in Australia, this latest Scottish side weere beaten by teams from golfing outposts such as Guatemala, Puerto Rico and the Russian Federation.
Guatemala only has six golf courses and Puerto Rico 30 but the Scots still contrived to finish behind them in what must rank as one of the most bitterly disappointing - and embarrassing - performances by a Scotland team for many a year.
A measure of fault must lie with the players although Stirling University's Graeme Robertson should be cleared of all blame as he was 20 strokes better than one of his partners, Matthew Clark, and 12 ahead of the other, Paul Shields.
The real criticism should be directed towards the SGU for coming up with a convoluted selection policy, brought in at the beginning of this year.
It takes three full pages to explain a system so involved that it must have been written by a committee or a person who relishes complicating an essentially simple exercise.
As soon as you get words such as "criteria," "timescales," and the "topography and type of grasses," you just know there will be trouble ahead.
However, the biggest mistake by far was the decision not to select Jack McDonald (pictured above).
The Barassie teenager was the highest-ranked Scot in the world amateur rankings, having won the British Universities title, reached the semi-finals of the British Amateur Championship at Royal Troon and played all four rounds of the Scottish Open.
He was the first amateur to make the cut in the Scottish Open for six years, so following in the footsteps of Sergio Garcia and Matt Kuchar when they were amateurs.
The recently published SGU selection policy states that the Eisenhower team will consist of the leading Scot in the world rankings and two selectors' picks.
However, officials shot themselves in the foot when they added that the leader in the world rankings also has to be in the top 15 in the SGU Order of Merit.
McDonald was just outside that because he played only a handful of events, albeit major ones.
To add insult to injury, the SGU then chose McDonald as their "Scottish Golfer of the Year," a piece of news buried under the welter of words emanating from the Ryder Cup, then the Dunhill Links.
No doubt the SGU's position will be defended, but, in truth, there can be no defence.
The ferociously wordy selection policy should be scrapped and replaced by a simpler and more sensible one.
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