WHEN a man returns to the scene of his greatest triumph, to the place where his life changed suddenly and irrevocably, it is normal to strike upon a rich vein of sentiment and then rather straightforward, journalistically speaking, to prick its vessel and stand back as the notebook runs awash with nostalgia. But with Paul Lawrie it's not just like that.

Blood, stones, surly, Scot . . .that sort of thing.

"Look I'm not that type of person, " he tells you as he sees exactly where you are trying take the conversation, astute to the clumsy tricks of a trade he has become all too reacquainted with in this Open build-up. "Obviously I'm looking forward to going back to Carnoustie because I enjoy the course, but it's not about history or closure or anything like that. I'm trying to win a tournament, that's all. That's how it has to be." Of course, it doesn't have to be that way. If Lawrie was "that type of person" he could take the Arnie approach: a wave of the hand here, a birdie for old time's sake there, a million autographs by the side of the clubhouse and a billion endorsements everywhere else. But the 38-year-old is palpably not "that type of champion". Recognition is the key word in the story of Paul Lawrie. Alas, "lack of" is the quantity that has always preceded it.

Manfully, Lawrie now accepts that anomaly and has stopped raging against a light that has not so much been dying as never switched on.

"Yeah, I tried to change the respect thing for a while, but in end I couldn't change it at all, " he says. "It used to worry me every day, to be honest, but that was a few years ago.

I'm over it. I've dealt with it."

So what was there to deal with, what caused the first Scottish-born winner in 69 years of the tournament that defines his country and sport above all others to feel unloved and, on occasion, unwanted? Well, does the name Jean Van de Velde mean anything to you, does the image of rolled-up pantaloons ever flash back in the memory like Harold Lloyd hanging on that clock face? To Lawrie it understandably does and here is the basis of that thing he steadfastly refuses to call bitterness.

"That's what really annoyed me about some of what was written and said about me, " he reveals. "When all that was going on, they all forgot where I'd come from.

Here was someone who was throwing away The Open, who was splashing about in a burn and laughing and joking and his wife was all sort of hysterical. Well, it's not for me to judge, but this wasn't a circus, this was my career.

"I'd turned professional at 18 with a five handicap, when nobody gave me a dog's chance of even becoming a club pro. I'd worked my b***ocks off just to get on Tour never mind into a position to win a major. And then all of a sudden they're slighting me and saying he was the true champion, blah blah, blah, and I wasn't getting any credit. That's very difficult for a person to deal with. But I have, I've had to. At the end of the day, the Claret Jug is on my fireplace, with my name on it and they're not going to be rubbing it off. So there's no more I can do. " But there is, and Lawrie knows there is, particularly after a vitriolic email response to a radio interview a few months ago where he outlined his hurt with typical honesty. "I suppose the only way for me to gain that recognition is for me to win another one, or another two or three, " he says. "I certainly feel that's a distinct possibility. Why not?" Here, any number of factors could be dragged up. That he hasn't won in five years, perhaps?

And that even then it was the Wales Open and not the US?

That his current world ranking, at 276, is 117 places worse than even that of that young Open qualifier eight years, who stood on that first tee, on that final day, 10 behind and seemingly playing only for shots and giggles? That he has not appeared in the Ryder Cup since his commendable debut of '99, that he has not finished in a top 10 in a European Tour event for 15 months and not in any major since he won? Not to be too cruel, but this isn't the most obvious form-line of a champion ready to repeat.

"What amazes me most is that I haven't played in the Ryder Cup again, " he reveals.

"If you'd told me that after the '99 match I would never have believed you. But these spells happen in professional sport and you don't always get the rewards you deserve. But there's no point in looking back and regretting. It's like when you're on the course and you're three-over after six. If you let your mind concentrate on what went wrong in those holes and get to hetup about it, then your day is only going to get worse, sixover after 12 etc. No, you've just got to focus on where you are at the minute."

And where Lawrie happens to be is no bad place, especially on the personal level. He will take his two young boys, Craig and Michael, to Carnoustie to witness their first Open and will expect from them the values he and his wife, Marian, have always been so careful to instil. "That has always been the most important thing to me, to give them a normal life, " he explains. "And we are normal . . . we were before The Open, were afterwards and will be whatever happens.

You know, there's a room in my home we call 'The Golf Room'. The Jug's there, my other trophies, some photos, a practice mat, a little putting green, video cameras and what have you. And that's where it all stays; there is nothing about golf in the rest of the house. I didn't want it to be all about Dad and what he does for a living."

But this week, it will have to be. What Dad did and when the living was easy. If only.