It's almost impossible to walk a few yards down our bustling boulevards these days without someone lunging at you like a renaissance musketeer with a rapier and thrusting a leaflet, pamphlet, cheap drinks promotion, all-you-can-eat buffet offer, ransom note or court summons into your unsuspecting hands.

The other day, as this correspondent traipsed amid the crowds with all the jaunty, enthusiastic haste of a cow shuffling towards an abattoir, an unfeasibly trendy 20-something was about to nonchalantly give me a throwaway fashion magazine until he gazed at the hirpling, hapless vision lurching towards him, with arms outstretched like a monster in a cheap B-movie, and clearly decided I was beyond sartorial salvation as he retracted his offer. A golf writer not being offered a freebie? It must have been a first.

In the cut-and-thrust of the professional game, meanwhile, there's no such thing as a hand out. There are helping hands, mind you. The financial assistance that a chosen few have been given to aid the testing transition from the amateur scene to the paid ranks, either through the Team Scottish Hydro programme or Scottish Golf Support Ltd, will always create debate and brassed off bickering. Why did he get it and not her? And how does that player get it when that other player is equally as deserving? You can't support, or indeed please, everybody, of course, and we should be grateful that efforts continue to be made to assist with the burdens that come with full-time competition, whoever those players may be. It would take the combined resources of Bill Gates, the Sultan of Brunei and, er, Mike Ashley, to support every Scottish golfer who takes the leap into the pro game and, in these times when the temptation to make that plunge has never been greater due to the vast array of professional platforms now available, there is a danger that a culture of entitlement develops.

Nothing comes easy in this game and it was encouraging on the home front to see Pamela Pretswell and Craig Lee produce profitable performances on their respective tours at the weekend. Both have been fortunate to receive financial assistance in recent years and both have shown the drive, determination and ability to make the most of it. For Lee, who shared third in the Tshwane Open on Sunday, it was the Team Scottish Hydro package that aided his rise back on to the main tour in 2012 while Pretswell continues to receive Scottish Golf Support funding.

That amounts to around £23,000 worth of direct support for the season but when your first three events of the campaign are in Australia, New Zealand and China, the money can disappear faster than your hopes of a winner in the 2.50 at Taunton.

Pretswell continues to make significant strides, though, and her share of sixth place in a strong field at the World Ladies' Championship at Mission Hills was another sizeable step. It was the 25-year-old's second successive sixth place finish on the circuit and one achieved in a line-up containing Inbee Park, the five-times major winner and current world No 2, Suzann Pettersen, the world No 5, and the new world no 6, So Yeon Ryu, who pipped Park to the title in China on Sunday. That in itself should imbue the Scot with great confidence going forward.

Two years ago, when Pretswell achieved his first aim of safeguarding her tour card at the end of her rookie season, the former British Women's Amateur Strokeplay champion from Lanark expressed the hope that she could "reassess my goals and raise my expectations a bit more."

Modest and realistic, Pretswell, who now sits seventh on the Ladies' European Tour order of merit, is not one for making bold claims but as she continues to mature, develop and gain a stronger footing on the women's circuit, there is no reason why she should not be targeting that breakthrough victory. She has a trio of top-five finishes to her name and played in the final group of the Sberbank Golf Masters in Prague last season.

As part of the triumphant GB&I Curtis Cup side at Nairn in 2012, Pretswell has watched many of her team-mates flourish in the pro game since then. The supremely talented Charley Hull was last year's European No 1 and has already played in a Solheim Cup, Amy Boulden won the 2014 rookie of the year award, Holly Clyburn won in her first season on the circuit in 2013 and Stephanie Meadow finished third on her professional debut in last season's US Women's Open.

Perhaps Pretswell will be the next member of that class of 2012 to graduate with honours?

AND ANOTHER THING

Watch your back Rory, Jordan is coming to get you. Jordan Spieth, another young talent lumbered with the tag of America's next golfing king, underlined his credentials again with a second PGA Tour win in the Valspar Championship as he became only the fourth player to win two titles before turning 22. As a sidelined Tiger Woods slithered to 87th on the world order, Spieth, the heir to the throne, rose to sixth. "What I'm really focused on is Rory McIlroy," he said. "That's our ultimate goal, to be the best in the world." Golf's young guns continue to hit the target.