Watching the bold Lizzie turn 90 the other day – and by Lizzie I mean the Queen, not Lizzie who has been a stalwart of the Cathcart and District Floral Art club scene since VE night – this correspondent was struck by the fact that Her Majesty looked fairly brassed off by all the general pomp, palaver and plootering. One could sympathise, of course. Pretty soon, I too will be reaching a jowl-shuddering vintage which has a big fat zero stuck on the end of it although this particular birthday won’t be accompanied by national flag waving, commemorative dish cloots and quaint Royal Worcester round hinged trinket boxes. Like HRH, I’d pondered having a celebratory meal and feasting on something suitably hoity-toity but where do you buy unicorn fillets in a swan blood jus these days? It’ll just have to be egg and chips.

Yes, time fairly hurtles by. It doesn’t seem like four years since Andy Murray battered and clattered his way to tennis gold in the London Olympics. Here in 2016, it’s the gowfers who will be trying to swipe and swoosh their way to a medal in Rio. Well, some of them. With major champions like Adam Scott and Louis Oosthuizen recently stating that they will not be available for selection for their respective nations, there is a fear of a domino effect among the great and the good of the game. Let’s hope not.

It’s easy to make sceptical snortings about golf’s inclusion in the Games. Since its return was confirmed back in 2009, the general consensus has been that it is not the pinnacle of the game. That, of course, is an obvious yet valid point and the incidents over the past week have only highlighted golf’s awkward position. There will be a rhythmic gymnast who has dedicated her entire sporting existence to getting to Rio for perhaps a once in a lifetime opportunity while the likes of Scott and others can just say ‘sod this’ at the drop of a sponsored hat and nonchalantly give it a miss. It’s a bit of a kick in the teeth for those other sportsmen and sportswomen who have put all that blood, sweat, tears and a bit more sweat into achieving their Olympic dream. Golf is selfish game and to a wider audience in places where the sport is in its infancy, the withdrawals hardly make for great PR. Nevertheless, the very fact that golf now as Olympic status means it has generated funding in developing countries which would never have got that otherwise. In terms of growing the game, it is already serving a purpose.

Yes, there are groanings and grousings about the fact that the format is just a run-of-the-mill 72-hole strokeplay event while there are moanings and mutterings – not from the far more enthusiastic women golfers it has to be said - about the problems caused by shoehorning Olympic golf into the kind of jam-packed schedule that would make a tin of sardines look refreshingly roomy.

But when you’re dipping the toe back into the waters again after 112 years, it’s never going to be a perfect re-introduction. Scott, who was never interested in playing Olympic golf in the first instance and probably could have confirmed his withdrawal years ago, suggested it would be nothing more than “an exhibition”. Fair enough, but then some bearded cynics propping up the bar in the Red Lion howff in Prestwick back in 1860 probably thought the same thing about the very first Open Championship when eight players pitched up for a batter about over the town’s great links. Prestige simply doesn’t happen overnight. The modern majors in golf are different now to what they were back in the day and, who knows, this process of evolution could see an Olympic medal become equally as sought after in years to come. Only time will tell. What the future brings can’t be mapped out on a strokesaver, but in the present Olympic golf may as well be welcomed. The scarcity of a gold medal is its strength. It’s never been dangled in front of our golfing superstars before and it should be embraced.

And let’s face it. The idea of a Jordan Spieth or a Rory McIlroy waiting patiently outside the communal toilets in the athletes’ village as a Greco-Roman wrestler from Turkmenistan mulls over life’s subtle nuances in the cubicle is a whimsical notion that’s worth its weight in Olympic gold.