that some of the pros are making a big effort and people are working hard trying to give the game a fresh image. I’ve had to endure continuous criticism about the game being dull and boring for the last 15 years. It really pisses me off! At last there’s a magazine that stands up for golf!”

She means it, this girl. So let’s cut to the chase – let’s face it, we’re only really interested in one thing about Kirsty Gallacher:

“My swing? It’s not what it should be,” she grimaces. “In fact, I wouldn’t consider myself much of a golfer, by my family’s standards anyway. I just don’t get a lot of time to practice. I’ve been brought up with the work ethic that if you don’t practice you don’t play. It’s totally against the etiquette of golf to just go and chop a ball around a golf course like an idiot. You’ve got to respect the game a bit more than that.”

It’s not a good start is it… There you were thinking that one day soon Kirsty might pop up at your local club, amble around the car park looking for a playing partner, drag you out of your Volvo by your collar, give you the match of your life on the course then whisk you away to a new life of red-carpet treatment and spectacular guilt-free golf in equal measure. That, clearly, is not going to happen if, indeed, it ever was. Not right now, anyway.

“I’ve kept my golf under wraps, because given the opportunity to play in a pro-am I would not be able to do it without getting too worked up. If I practised enough and had time to hone my skills I think I’d be fine. My dad said I could have been a proper golfer. I reminded him of that recently and he denied it completely. He said: ‘I might have said you had a decent swing, but that’s it.’ He’s a perfectionist, my dad, so he’s not about to hand out any easy compliments.”

When it comes down to it, Kirsty couldn’t leave golf behind, even if she tried. Her family home is still in Wentworth, just off the golf course. Her dad, Bernard, is one of the chosen few of European Golf – eight times a Ryder Cup player and a three-time captain – her brother Jamie is a cracking amateur who could, in many people’s judgement, have made it as a pro and her cousin, Stephen, is currently on the European Tour.

» Kirsty Gallacher part 3