The golf ball; that little bundle of fluctuating fortune that has you contentedly cooing like a turtle dove on a first date one minute and hooting in anguish like an owl on an electric fence the next. In the grand history of the Royal & Ancient game, there have always been those who have given this spherical object a right good clatter. Back in 1854, for instance, it was the redoubtable Willie Park Snr who was giving his contemporaries of ye day the heebie jeebies. “Willie frichtens us wi’ his long driving,” quivered Allan Robertson, one of the leading professionals of those golfing times of yore.

Here in the whiz-bang modern era, the prodigious 300-odd yard batter off the tee is almost a defining feature of the sport as super-charged balls are launched into the air by drivers with hi-tech heads the size of industrial woks.

Over in China this week, a kind of state of the nation summit is taking place as the game’s powers-that-be stand at lecterns, deliver speeches and point at graphs while everybody else nods along like the Churchill insurance dog as a variety of issues are discussed in the Golf Business Forum.

For years now, there has been much fist-shaking and general huffing and puffing from players and pundits alike about the distance the golf ball travels. Golf’s ruling bodies may have taken the step to ban the anchored method of putting but, in terms of doing something about how far the ba’ goes, there remains nothing to report. “There's no burning desire on our part to make any changes,” said Martin Slumbers, the chief executive of the Royal & Ancient. Tim Finchem, the heid honcho of the PGA Tour, agreed wholeheartedly. “We shouldn't do anything,” he said.

Back in 2000, only one player on the PGA Tour averaged a drive of 300 yards. Last year, the number of players averaging dunts of 300 yards or more had risen to 26. In the past 20 years, the average distance on the circuit has increased by over 20 yards.

Technology and athleticism have played a part in this increasing trend but when the ball keeps going further the courses, sadly, keep getting longer too. Like medieval criminals on the rack, layouts get stretched to within an inch of their lives in a fairly uninspiring effort to combat the big-hitter as creativity, feel and imagination are sacrificed on the altar of brute strength and one-dimensional bombardments become the norm. Older, cherished courses get bludgeoned into irrelevance and rendered obsolete for tournament purposes while the construction of “championship courses” continues at a time when there is a demand for shorter versions of golf among the general population.

“Sadly we will see a course measuring something like 8 to 8,500 yards long unless people listen,” said Andrew Coltart, the former Ryder Cup player who has always talked sensibly and passionately about the game that has served him well down the seasons. “The people to blame are the people building bigger courses. If you keep building bigger courses you’ll only continue developing the ball. Take distance out of the equation. Why don’t they demolish its relevance and actually make shorter courses where distance is not a factor?

“We are talking about a game that is losing numbers rapidly, that people don’t have the time to play. Why on earth are we designing courses that will take twice as long to walk round let alone play? If you want to attract people to the game, youngsters to the game, then make it enjoyable, make it fun, don’t make it brutal.

“A tiny portion of the population are professional so why the hell build a course for professionals when your money is going to come from people who can’t hit it as far as the pros?

“Every year, the tour goes to a course they played the year before and they’ve altered it, they’ve stuck a tee 40 yards back. Why not move it 50 yards closer and narrow things up at 320 yards or something. No, the easy option is to stick a tee 40 yards back. It’s brainless.”

Forget the ball and the brawn. A golfing brain is the way forward.