Andy Murray must crush Wimbledon history as well as Novak Djokovic | Kevin Mitchell

Andy Murray with fans after a Court 15 practice session on the eve of the Wimbledon men's singles final. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Whether or not Andy Murray can break through the next level of shackles the nation has wrapped around his psyche – the 77-year wait for a Wimbledon men's champion – his final against Novak Djokovic on Sunday will almost certainly be an ordeal. We will love it. The winner will too. For the loser, the pain will be considerable, to heart and body.

The odds are overwhelmingly that this final will be similar to each of their past three battles for a grand slam title. In all four of their big clashes – the first was a relative blitz in three sets in Melbourne two years ago – they have spent nearly a thousand minutes across the net from each other, but the others, again for the Australian title in 2012 and this year, as well as the US Open last September, were the most brutal examinations of their commitment to the demands of the modern game.

Tennis did not used to be like this. It was always tough, often pretty, but never demanded that the combatants give so much to the cause. There were limits. No longer.

Djokovic's semi-final win in five sets over Juan Martín del Potro on Friday was the most graphic demonstration of that verity. It was not only the longest semi-final in the history of the tournament, it was one of the best. The level of tennis hit such a consistency of excellence that Boris Becker – previous owner of the longevity record with Andy Murray's coach Ivan Lendl – was moved to remark, "Can it get any better than this?"

The answer is: probably. It is astonishing what the best players in the world have given us in recent years, finals of such draining intensity it is tiring just watching them and there seems to be no avoiding these climaxes of quite terrible beauty.

But it is what they sign up for from a young age. Murray and Djokovic first played each other at a youth tournament in France when they were 11 years of age. Murray won. Djokovic said on Saturday (as he has said before) what he remembers most about Murray then is his curly hair. He has put considerably more relevant information into his Andy Murray file since then, as has the Scot.

As with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, they have established such a long-running rivalry that there is little about each other's game they do not know. They no doubt recognise tics and twitches, like two gunslingers eyeing up each other and squinting for the merest advantage in time and anticipation.

As ever, especially on grass, those reaction times against big serves will determine the early tone and the result of their 19th contest. And the prize is the same. Djokovic says he had dreamt of winning Wimbledon since he was a small boy. Murray, also, has had that dream – with the attendant nightmare of a nation's expectations. He has tried hard to ignore that burden but it is difficult to believe it is not lurking in a small part of his brain.

"Any tennis player, that is the goal that you have," he said on Saturday after his final workout on Court 15, the place he has been going to for each of his eight campaigns here. "You want to try to win Wimbledon and the closer you get to it the more you are obviously going to think about it. But the most important thing is that you aren't looking [too far] ahead.

"At no stage of the match can you get too ahead of yourself. Against most players that is dangerous, against someone like Novak that is even more dangerous, because he is extremely fit and doesn't give anything away. I am going to need to earn every point."

Even the language that Murray uses is that of suffering: the "need to earn", the obligation to live up to the demands of his sport, to put it on the line. Nothing will come easy for either of them on Sunday afternoon.

As for the expectation of others, they will not go away. Can Djokovic win his second Wimbledon, or will Murray win his first? Will this be another defining match in the game's new rivalry? These are the questions people will be thinking, even if for the participants such considerations are secondary to the job in hand. That is how professionals talk and prepare.

They cannot afford to be distracted by history or statistics. So here are some numbers for them to ignore: 1,600,000 for a start, the prize in sterling for the champion, twice as much as for the loser, which is the way it should be – and all part of a quite staggering increase in overall prize money of 49%.

There a few other digits that matter: the No1 ranking will stay with Djokovic, whatever the result, and Murray will stay at No2. The last time the world's two best players were in this final was two years ago, when Djokovic beat Nadal – and how unceremoniously did the Spaniard leave us this time, bombed out on the first day, followed quickly by Federer. Times are shifting rapidly.

So what of their form here? Djokovic, it has to be said, has looked slightly stronger overall. Murray has had more anxious moments but they have both found a way through. When they dragged themselves away to their respective ice baths on Friday, Murray had racked up 14 hours and 51 minutes of court time, Djokovic 25 minutes fewer. That's only about an hour longer than they spent beating each other up in their last three grand slam finals.

But will their only grasscourt match – Murray's win at Wimbledon in the semi-finals of the London Olympics a year ago – be an X factor in the equation, a key to the result?

"I don't know how many times I have played him," Murray said, "about 12 times? [18, with the Serb up 11-7] and we have played so many points, so many close sets, so many long rallies. I don't know whether it is a match, or a few points or just years of information gathered against each other, I don't know exactly what it will be that makes the difference.

"But, having played against him and won against him on grass will help me. I know what worked against him at the Olympics and hopefully some of those things will work again."

So, alongside struggle there is hope. We had better prepare for another mighty collision of wills.

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Scotland's handicap? Sexist golf clubs | Kevin McKenna

The 18th green at Muirfield: spot the women. Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty Images

The event that ought to display Scotland in all its summer glory is instead now regularly, and seriously, embarrassing this country. The 142nd Open golf championship commences on 18 July at Muirfield, home to the self-styled Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers. It is an institution that does not permit women to become members.

This would be far less troubling if it were merely the usual sort of golf club that operates in Scotland: a wilting country and western club for sclerotic and desiccated men and the sort of people who like to wear blazers in broad daylight.

It is a place to which a certain type of chap goes for entertainment on a Saturday evening, but only because no one looks twice at the urine stains on the light grey flannelled trousers they all seem to wear. As such, we could leave it quietly to go about its business, letting daft old men snore away in a red leather upholstered corner as they sleep off the lunchtime spotted dick and custard.

Muirfield, though, is one of our finest links courses and a regular host of this, the greatest golf tournament on Earth. By allowing this club to host the Open regularly Scotland tells the world that a significant part of it remains backward and ridiculous. We permit Muirfield to be Scotland for a week or so and thus we tell the world that we treat women like second-class citizens.

Muirfield is not alone in its cretinous, anti-women policy. Two other clubs that host the Open – Royal Troon and the R&A at St Andrews – similarly refuse to allow women to join their organisations. The people who run these outfits insist that they do not break equality laws as they are private members clubs that allow black people to use their facilities, but only if they are accompanied by white people.

Oh, I do beg your pardon, my mistake… of course they don't discriminate against black people or Muslims or Catholics as there would be a national outcry if they did and a way would be found to shut them down quicker than you could shout pink Pringle sweater. And anyway, what sort of man wants to join a club where there are no women?

We are also told that there exist dozens of women-only clubs in Scotland to cater for "the ladies". These, though, possess few of the challenges and little of the splendour of many of the male-only clubs. The fact remains that if you are a woman who takes golf seriously you are barred from holding membership at some of Scotland's best courses.

Scotland is pock-marked by scores of these clubs that refuse to allow women to be members and occupy land that, more often than not, could be put to better use as allotments. My own two sons are members of one and that is why I found myself marooned in the middle of a green wasteland just the other Sunday, forlornly trying to catch up with them as they battled it out in their annual club championship.

Obviously I could never endure an entire 18-hole round and so I ventured out at a time when I thought they might be a considerable way through the contest. As they were heading down the back nine, though, I was scrabbling about trying to catch them up somewhere on the front nine (or vice versa). Dusk was falling on the south side of Glasgow when the search party picked me up looking like a vagrant hunting for lost golf balls to sell back to the chaps.

Golfing's demimonde will descend on Scotland's east coast next week and thus it will become a no-go area for normal people. I've had several family holidays in St Andrews almost ruined when we realised too late that this otherwise beautiful town was hosting the Open that year. It's not just the delinquent yellow, pink and blue leisurewear that was once the sole preserve of the cast in a Cliff Richard film, or even the infernal ubiquity of their silly baseball caps.

It's the odious and fawning way that golf people conduct themselves in the presence of the professional players or the R&A officials, who all seem to resemble the male staff of Grace Brothers in Are You Being Served?. Golfing society is more deferential than the Queen's garden party.

Recently, Alex Salmond made a stand (of sorts) when he refused his annual invitation to the Open. Mr Salmond, himself a very enthusiastic golfer, simply stated that his conscience could not allow him to attend an event being hosted by such a sexist organisation. The first minister's admirable stance was somewhat undermined, though, when it emerged that the government would otherwise be represented by the tourism minister.

If civic Scotland was as serious about sexism as it is about equality in the workplace or ensuring that there is no discrimination against gay people, a way would be found to bring Muirfield and its ilk to heel or shut them down. MSPs and local councillors belonging to each of Scotland's three main liberal political parties are to be found on the membership lists of sexist golf clubs. These parties should simply outlaw membership of these clubs in the same way that they might outlaw membership of an extreme far-right organisation.

Local councils should seek to do likewise and use Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex language, religion, political or other opinion…"

Our government must withdraw all funding and support for the R&A in its schemes to deliver golf to young people. Nor should government ministers, who are supposed to represent us all, be sharing platforms in the run-up to the Ryder Cup next year with officials who see nothing wrong with awarding golf tournaments and all the prestige that goes with them to clubs that refuse to treat women as equals.

Muirfield shames this country. Equally shameful, though, is how successive liberal administrations in post-devolution Scotland turn a blind eye.

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