As the build up to the Masters continues and the world's best look to add a green jacket to their sartorial assortments, let's take a step back to 2016, when Herald Sport's Nick Rodger caught up with Stuart Murray, the decorated Elderslie golfer who was invited to compete in the 1964 Masters. Here's Stuart's story of an Augusta trip that was a golfing drive too far ...

THE green jacket is hanging up in Yorkshire, Magnolia Lane has been given a good hosing down and the players have long since gone … well, apart from Jordan Spieth who’s probably still standing at the 12th thinking ‘give me another ba’, we’re trying that again’.

Augusta National has reverted back to its secluded, exclusive norm for another year. In the eyes of many, this expanse of Georgia greenery is the golfing equivalent of heaven … only harder to get in. For Stuart Murray, the former Scottish Amateur champion and Walker Cup player, the invitation to enter through golf’s Pearly Gates did arrive from none other than Bobby Jones, the American great who ‘stormed the impregnable quadrilateral’ and won the grand slam of 1930 before co-founding the Masters in 1934.

Readers of a certain vintage will remember the well-kent Murray, the decorated Elderslie player who was known as ‘The Sheriff’ and enjoyed numerous showdowns and shoot-outs with celebrated golfing gunslingers like Ronnie Shade, Gordon Cosh, Charlie Green, Sandy Saddler, David Blair, Joe Carr and Michael Bonallack.

For Murray, the Masters invitation to compete in the 1964 tournament was somewhat unexpected but Jones had clearly been impressed by the Scot’s golfing conquests. An RSVP from Murray saying, ‘yes Bobby, we’ll see you at the Washington Road turn off’ was, unfortunately, unrealistic. “I knew right away I wouldn’t go,” reflected Murray, who is now a sprightly 82-years-old. “I’d just a bought a house and in those days it was a hell of a long trip. Goodness knows how much the flight would have cost … and I may have had to go by boat anyway.

"It’s the biggest regret I have in golf that I never got to go. I still have the invitation in a frame. It simply says ‘the board of governors at Augusta National Golf Club cordially invite you to participate in the nineteen hundred and sixty four Masters Tournament to be held at Augusta, Georgia.’ It was a huge surprise at the time. Bobby Jones was a hero. Everybody of my era was brought up with the great Jones. I never thought I’d get a letter from him inviting me to the Masters.

"Elderslie was a bit of a golfing backwater and nobody never really knew where it was. It wasn’t one of the famed clubs. Imagine someone from Elderslie getting announced on the tee at the Masters? The invitation has been a nice thing to hold on to. I’ve dined out on that one.”

These days, an amateur being invited to the opening major of the year would usually be funded to go by the golfing unions. “When I first played for Scotland, you got a tie and wouldn’t dare asking for another one,” noted Murray with a wry chuckle.

Murray’s invitation from the redoubtable Jones is part of a small exhibition which has opened in the Elderslie clubhouse and celebrates both his achievements and those of Stephen McAllister, another member of the Renfrewshire club who enjoyed a pair of title triumphs on the European Tour. Officials hope it will act as an inspiration to the next generation of golfers coming through.

While Murray’s victory over Shade in the 1962 Scottish Amateur Championship at Muirfield provided great individual success, the defeat to the US in the following year’s Walker Cup at Turnberry provoked collective anguish for the Scot and his team-mates. Murray played No 1 that weekend and helped GB&I into a 6-3 lead after day one with a brace of wins that included a fine singles triumph over Dean Beman, the US Amateur champion.

The visitors roared back, though, and Murray, in partnership with the great Bonallack, lost by one hole in the opening foursomes of the final day to the duo of Billy Joe Patton and Richard Sikes as the US whitewashed the session 4-0. Murray would go down to Patton again in the singles as the Americans claimed a 12-8 win.

“People who were there still mention it to me and say they couldn’t believe we lost,” said Murray. “My foursomes loss with Michael was a huge turning point. It was the tragedy of Turnberry. It was very sombre and the defeat hit us like a rocket.”

Patton, who almost won the 1954 Masters as an amateur, would extend another Augusta invitation to Murray a few years later. “Billy was a life member and he said ‘if you want to come just let me know and I’ll get you on',” he added. “In later years I did get out there and played at the Georgia National club but I didn’t get down to Augusta. I never ever got inside those gates.”

What did we say about golfing heaven again?