In these button-punching times, technological fads come and go so quickly that even those gizmos that emerged on the scene with whiz-bang ceremony barely a year ago are now about as cutting edge as the horse- drawn plough.

It's almost a case of blink and you'll miss it.

Funnily enough, that's exactly the kind of problem golf's powers-that-be have been facing as super slow-motion, high definition television replays zoom in on every incident with the kind of forensic detail you'd normally get during an MRI scan.

To the naked eye, a little dimpled ball moving a fraction among the pine straws can be undetectable. Analyse the same situation under the remorseless laboratory conditions of television evidence, though, and it becomes a shift of seismic proportions. The subsequent waves created can develop into a tsunami of controversy while those pious, armchair anoraks who phone in and complain about possible infringements settle back smugly into their sofas.

Yesterday, as part of their biennial review of the decisions on the rules of golf, officials at the Royal & Ancient and the United States Golf Association, the global game's ruling bodies, unveiled a series of tweaks and add-ons which will come into force on January 1, 2014. Most noteworthy is the addition of decision 18/4, which states: 'Where enhanced technological evidence (e.g. HDTV, digital recording or online visual media, etc.) shows that a ball has left its position and come to rest in another location, the ball will not be deemed to have moved if that movement was not reasonably discernible to the naked eye at the time'.

This revision should be a victory for common sense. The unflinching gaze of modern technology in assessing rules violations has been a source of much contention in recent years and, with certain players commanding vastly more air-time than others, the trial by television varies considerably in consistency.

Tiger Woods has had his fair share of high profile infringements this season, most recently at the BMW Championship, where he was given a two-shot penalty when his ball moved as he rummaged among the nearby twigs. Woods maintained it had merely "oscillated", but after much squinting, rewinding, freeze-framing and slow-mo-ing of the television footage, the world No.1's ball was deemed to have moved.

"Golf has a long history of players taking a penalty because a ball has moved but, equally, there are a number of situations where a player could potentially be penalised due to the movement being so small that it is hard to tell if there was indeed any movement," said David Rickman, the R&A's director of rules, who stated that this new decision had been

finalised in the summer, well before the most recent Woods incident. "Hence the introduction of what we are calling the naked eye approach.

"It will be up to the committee to decide if an incident was discernible to the naked eye and, if not, the TV evidence will be disregarded. It will come down to a matter of judgment. We appreciate this is not going to be easy but feel it is appropriate. TV evidence will always be used, whatever the source, but the danger is it can almost become too intrusive."

Woods, and the PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, have both expressed a desire to see some sort of time limit placed on rules violations called in by spectators. "We believe it's important to try to establish the facts as accurately as we can and then apply the rules," added Rickman. "We are fortunate that we do have an extended time frame, unlike other sports that have to make immediate decisions."

Among the other notable changes announced yesterday, decision 14-3/18 allows players to access weather reports on smart phones during a round without being in breach of the rules. Revised decision 25-2/0.5 helps to clarify when a ball is considered to be embedded in the ground and revised decision 27-2a/1.5 allows a player to go forward up to around 50 yards without forfeiting their right to go back and play a provisional ball.

In total, 87 changes have been made for 2013-2014 with three new decisions and 59 revised decisions, while 24 decisions have been withdrawn. You can pore over each and every one on the R&A's all-singing, all-dancing website. That's how things work in these technological times, after all.