YOUR correspondent has never had a great attention span. In fact, my mind started to wander just then, halfway through typing the word ‘span’. If there’s one thing you need to have at a wordy, blethering conference, then it’s the focus and concentration of a Zen monk. Here in the tranquil, plush surrounds of the Old Course Hotel in St Andrews, the Royal & Ancient’s ‘Time for Golf’ forum is taking place as a variety of movers and shakers from across the globe stand at lecterns and try to, well, get the game moving.

“We’ve been getting slower for the last 20 years and I think lot of people hoped that self-regulation would work and that people would sort of correct themselves,” admitted Martin Slumbers, the chief executive of the R&A, during the first pace of play symposium since 2003 and one that focuses in on both the recreational game and the top end of the amateur and professional scene.

Amid much earnest head nodding, and the occasional stifled yawn, there are presentations, diagrams and charts to mull over as well as a series of mind-boggling formulas that lead to you almost swallowing your own brain as you try to fathom them out. Who would have thought that attempting to encourage golfers to get a ruddy shift on could be so scientific? Of course, the serious side to all of this is that pace of play remains a sizeable issue that is affecting golf at all levels, whether it is the upper echelons of the professional tours or the murderous thrashings at club level. From laborious pre-shot routines that look more like some elaborate mating ritual, to courses that are set up so brutally torturous you may as well be playing in Hades, right down to plain and simple bad etiquette, the roots of slow play are vast and varied. At North Berwick, for instance, pace of play is affected by the odd outside occurrence. “Because of the land reform act, and the right to roam, we’ve had people having picnics on the greens, surfers changing on the fairway before going to the beach and families making sandcastles in the bunkers,” noted Chris Spencer, the managing secretary at the redoubtable East Lothian links

The solutions won’t come from a two day gathering in the Auld Grey Toun but it’s an opportunity for minds to meet in an effort to formulate a plan of attack. Slumbers was given plenty of food for thought and one suggestion tickled his fancy with regards to golf at club level.

“Perhaps we do need to have a conversation about maybe devising a pace of play handicap, a kind of slow, medium and fast category” said Slumbers. “We should be more honest. Some people are naturally fast walkers, others are not. We all know the fast players at our own clubs, so why not put them out first in the monthly medal and let them have their fun and balance it out? That was one idea that struck me.”

Slumbers was keen to stress that the R&A would not be imposing some kind of global policy, though. “We want to start a dialogue, not set an agenda,” he said. “I don’t think a strict policy would work, it wouldn’t be effective, it wouldn’t be treating people with respect.

“This is not going to happen overnight. We’ll make this manual public once we get all the comments in and make it available. There are plenty of ideas, lots of similarities and some will work in some clubs and other things will work elsewhere.”

Whether it’s extending the intervals of tee-times – the LPGA Tour increased the gap between groups by one minute in 2014 and shaved 14 minutes off the average round – or trying to drive home the message to club golfers to play off a tee suitable to their abilities, the problems, and the solutions to those problems, are often fairly obvious.

The R&A boffins have calculated that the average drive of a male club golfer in the UK is 210 yards. For a female, it’s 145 yards. Of course, when presented with the opportunity to play long, rigorous ‘championship’ layouts, certain club golfers forget to leave their egos at the starter’s box and insist on biting off far more than they can chew by playing off the back tees. “Educating the average golfer” is a phrase that often gets trotted out when talk turns to pace of play.

That may be easier said than done. "Unfortunately, golfers are masochists," said the great Jack Nicklaus a few years back. He was probably stuck behind a foutering four-ball at the time.