Nothing in sport is quite a formality, as Jean van de Velde proved at Carnoustie last year, but, if England somehow mislay their tactical marbles on Scottish soil again tomorrow and allow an unprecedented Grand Slam opportunity to float away, they will have tartan-tinted regrets for life.
Just as a three-stroke cushion accompanied the world's favourite French golfer as he strode to the 72nd tee, four successive wins have given England such control of their own destiny it will take a freak result in Dublin plus a 40-point Scottish victory to rob them of the inaugural Six Nations crown.
Even so, if they blow a Grand Slam for the second consecutive year, the trophy alone will be achingly cold comfort whether the forecast snow arrives or not.
Much has been written about the similarities with Wembley 12 months ago when Wales engineered the most dramatic conclusion in tournament history to nip the Red Rose celebrations in the bud, but this is a different England, a side more inclined to dwell on the future than on last year's discarded banana skins.
They still feel at the base camp of their assault on rugby's true peaks and are privately billing their two Tests in South Africa in June as the acid test of their current worth. If that sounds like a rather sombre, almost killjoy attitude, Clive Woodward prefers it that way before big games nowadays.
Light-hearted relief has been limited to the cheeky hijack of a training session by two girls hired to promote the dubious-sounding National Cleavage Day but the chances of Woodward's men being exposed by the Scots depend on Ian McGeechan finding a rather more subtle way of distracting their visitors.
For all the gnashing of teeth about the structure of their domestic game, the Scots are a potentially better team than their results this season would suggest while England, despite their flourishing backplay and 19 tries to date, are not yet the world beaters they aspire to be. There are those within the coaching team who feel the pack need another year before they can be collectively rated as world-class and Italy's early bravado rattled them a fortnight ago.
"Italy asked a lot of questions of us early on and, to be honest, having watched the video, we were disappointed in the way we handled it," said Richard Hill, one-third of an English back row who tomorrow chalk up a collective century of caps. His colleague Lawrence Dallaglio is also insistent that England have "only played well at certain points" this season.
"It's not so much the prizes we're looking for as consistency of performance. In the past we've always promised much and delivered nothing. We've put together one-off performances against good sides and yet, when we've been asked to do it on a consistent basis, we've failed. If we're able to achieve that consistency we'll get what we deserve, if not we won't."
This, though, is still Scotland v England, with all the vapour trails of history that entails. "There's a good performance waiting to come out of this Scottish team," pledges Andy Nicol, the Scotland captain, who will use the dressing-room dismay over the treatment of David Hilton to ensure a passionate first quarter, if nothing else.
England, though, did not get where they are today by running out of second-half puff and are also keen to give their departing forwards' coach John Mitchell a worthy send-off. To do that they will have to second-guess a highly motivated McGeechan and demonstrate, as they did in Paris, they are now a side who thrive rather than shrink under pressure.
It is one of life's curiosities that the final act of any drama tends to overshadow what has gone before. People tend to remember an Open champion, for instance, for the way he plays on Sunday afternoon rather than the previous three days. England's challenge is to prove themselves worthy grand slammers without losing sight of their sole priority.
SCOTLAND: C Paterson (Edinburgh); C Moir (Northampton), G Townsend (Brive), J McLaren (Bourgoin), G Metcalfe (Glasgow); D Hodge (Edinburgh), A Nicol (Glasgow, capt); T Smith (Brive), S Brotherstone (Brive), M Stewart (Northampton), S Murray (Saracens), R Metcalfe (Northampton), J White (Glasgow), B Pountney (Northampton), M Leslie (Edinburgh). Replacements: G Scott, G McIlwham, S Grimes, S Reid, B Redpath, G Shiel, A Bulloch.
ENGLAND: M Perry (Bath); A Healey (Leicester), M Tindall (Bath), M Catt (Bath), B Cohen (Northampton); J Wilkinson (Newcastle), M Dawson (Northampton, capt); J Leonard (Harlequins), P Greening (Wasps), P Vickery (Gloucester), G Archer (Bristol), S Shaw (Wasps), R Hill (Saracens), N Back (Leicester), L Dallaglio (Wasps). Replacements: N McCarthy, T Woodman, M Corry, J Worsley, A Gomarsall, A King, I Balshaw.
Referee: C Thomas (Wales).
