Back in the day, before colour was invented and smiling was still being trialled, the celebrated St Andrian, Allan Robertson, lamented the march of technological advance in the Royal & Ancient game.

A ball-maker by trade, Robertson favoured the featherie ba’ and was left particularly scunnered when the cheaper and superior gutta percha came on the scene, effectively rendering his own business obsolete.

“It’s nae gowff,” he whined.

Goodness knows what Robertson would have made of the current debates surrounding this little dimpled sphere.

The issue of distance and the vast lengths a ball can travel is a bit like golf’s equivalent of having a stone in your shoe. You can shoogle it into a little crannie but it will eventually return to generate even more cursing and muttering.

After years of essentially burying their heads in the sand, officials at the R&A and the USGA have now conceded that a line in the sand has been crossed.

The discussion surrounding reining back the ball at the top end of tournament golf continues to grow in volume.

Many of the game’s heavyweights have flung their tuppence worth into the pot and if Jack Nicklaus is to believed, then something could be getting teed-up sooner rather than later. “I had dinner with Mike Davis [chief executive of the USGA] on Sunday night and Mike said, ‘we’re getting there, we’re going to get there and I need your help when we get there’.

“I said, ‘that’s fine. I’m happy to help you, I’ve only been yelling at you for 40 years’. I said, ‘I assume you’re going to study for another ten years or so, though?’ and he [Davis] says ‘oh, no, no, no, we’re not going to do that as I think we’re getting closer to agreements with the R&A’.

“I’m hoping that’s going to happen. I’ve talked to Mike a lot and he’s been very optimistic about wanting to get something done.”

Whatever is done, it won’t be done easily. Taking on the big manufacturers could see golf course concerns become court room battles.

When the R&A and USGA were in the process of eradicating the anchored putter, Mark King, the then chief executive of equipment giant Taylor Made, delivered a withering assessment of the governing bodies while stating that a limit on innovation would “kill the industry”.

Nicklaus maintains the manufacturers should have nothing to fear. “I don’t understand why Titleist would be against it [a restricted ball],” he added.

“They make probably the best product and if they make the best product, whether it’s 20 per cent shorter, then what difference would it make?”