Forget handing out the shimmering Claret Jug to the winner of the Open Championship for the past 15 years. Peter Dawson’s final act as chief executive of the Royal & Ancient will be far more glamorous. “My last duty is reading the minutes at the autumn meeting,” said Dawson with a grin ahead of his retirement later this month. “That largely means reading the list of prize winners of the various competitions … and the last one on the list is the Brazil Nut Cup.”

That particular contest, a keenly fought nine-hole stableford tussle for the over-70s, gives Dawson an opportunity to check out the emerging talent on the R&A production line.

Of course, Dawson has been up close and personal to plenty of greats during his time at the helm and, as he casually reflected on his tenure, there remains one name that crops up both in terms of accomplishments and anecdotes. Tiger Woods. “I think my first Open as secretary in 2000 stands out,” said Dawson, who was performing the Ivor Robson role as official starter at last weekend’s Walker Cup. “We had the first Champions Challenge, we had glorious weather and we had Tiger in his absolute pomp.”

Five years later, in 2005, it was the Tiger doing his stuff in the Masters at Augusta with that astonishing chip on the 16th that trundled, teetered and dropped in while giving the salivating marketing men at Nike an iconic image to play with. “I was the nearest person to Tiger in the world when he hit that shot as I was the rules official for that hole,” recalled Dawson of the shot that helped Woods win the last of his four Green Jackets. “Tiger had a picture of the crowd going absolutely berserk and one person, me, standing deadpan, watching this thing unfold. So he sent it to me with a note that said ‘get a little excited in future’.”

Dawson’s time in golf’s top job has been far from dull, of course. On his watch, the R&A has finally opened its doors to female members, golf has been brought back into the Olympics, the decision has been made to ban the anchored putter as of 2016, the television rights to the Open have been sold to Sky and an agreement has been made to take the championship itself back to Northern Ireland for the first time since 1951.

Another Open venue, Turnberry, has been purchased by the big, brash American tycoon and wannabe President Donald Trump. There is no date pencilled in as yet for the return of the game’s oldest major to the great Ayrshire links but many are now asking if it ever will following Trump’s well-documented spoutings on Mexican immigrants and the subsequent backlash that it provoked from certain golfing bodies.

“To think that we are going to determine where an Open Championship is held because of something somebody said on the political trail in America is absurd,” said Dawson. “We have other priorities, but that’s for a future committee to judge.”

One major priority for Martin Slumbers, the man who will take over the reins from Dawson, is participation and the need to grow the game in a hectic, changing society where leisure time is becoming more squeezed.

“We always used to play nine holes when we didn’t have time for 18,” said Dawson. “Pay and play courses would be well advised to have nine hole green fees if they don’t already.

You just have to make the game as attractive as you can but, personally, I’d be very much against any dumbing down of the game. They can do that if they want but it ain’t golf.”