IT’S an annual meeting known as the ‘media round table’, an Arthurian-like assembly of the great and the good from the golf writing fraternity who have been beckoned forth into the court of the Royal & Ancient to discuss all the pressing issues in the game … oh, and more importantly, what kind of fillings are going to be in the complimentary sandwiches.

Of course, any notion of knight-like chivalry swiftly flew out the window when this correspondent nonchalantly pinched the final Custard Cream from the communal tray of biscuits and prompted a fury of grousing, groaning, muttering and moaning from his fellow scribes that was only tempered when Martin Slumbers, the chief executive of the R&A, brought in a saucer-full of special reserve Jammy Dodgers to accompany the dregs of the tea urn.

Like the choice, and amount, of sugary nibbles, there is always plenty to discuss and debate – various odds and ends from the day’s bletherings can be read about elsewhere in this section – but one issue that will no doubt continue to be discussed and debated will be the prickly topic of male-only golf clubs and their place on the Open Championship rota.

This July, it’s the return of redoubtable Royal Troon to host the game’s oldest major again. About this time last year, the Ayrshire club announced that it would be undergoing a comprehensive review of its men-only membership to consider the most appropriate “policy for the future.”

With the Royal & Ancient finally leading the way and opening its membership up to the good ladies in 2014, it seemed inevitable that the rest would follow. Royal St George’s, another club on the Open list, swiftly ditched its all-male make up while the Muirfield members announced that they too were involved in one of these “reviews” that seem to involve more bargaining and bickering than a day at the Brexit talks.

As for Royal Troon? Well, the review is still on-going and with the Open edging closer every day, Slumbers revealed yesterday that it seemed “highly unlikely” that any change to the club’s membership will be made before the summer showpiece. Of course, the Troon top brass have always maintained that they are different to other all-male clubs in that Troon Ladies have their own course and clubhouse across the road and the two enjoy a highly cordial relationship, which they clearly do. Indeed, this year’s Open will see male and female members from both clubs join forces to forge a united championship committee and this alliance will, essentially, co-host the event. Yet, the male members of Royal Troon must surely be naïve to think that this cosy arrangement will pacify some of the more fevered sections of the media come Open week. The last time the championship was staged at an all-male club, at Muirfield in 2013, the fist-shaking, pitch-fork rattling and relentless battering almost overwhelmed the R&A high command as accusations of sexism flew wildly like tee-shots at The Herald’s spring golf outing. There was no doubt that the event was overshadowed by the whole furore even if some of the more self-righteous bleatings from certain outlets about male-only clubs being “Scotland’s shame” were spectacularly hysterical in the grand scheme of society’s ills.

What are the chances of a similar palaver unfolding at Troon this season? Probably pretty high and Slumbers and his R&A aides may already be digging out the chain mail and reinforced cod pieces. There can be no doubt that Slumbers, in his first year at the helm of golf’s governing body outside the US and Mexico, would have preferred this review to have reached a positive conclusion by now. While he used words like “delighted” and “a great pleasure” to see Royal Troon and Troon Ladies working together in the build up to the Open, you can read between the lines. “I keep going back to my general view, that we want golf to be open to all,” he said yesterday. “That’s important on the way I think about life.”

The R&A don’t tend to do forceful interventions, particularly on this issue, but they can do gentle nudgings to the ribs. “Get on with it,” is the phrase that comes to mind.

In the wake of the R&A finally allowing female members, the forthcoming merger with the Ladies Golf Union, which will come into force at the start of 2017, has to be welcomed as another good new story. Slumbers is clearly eager to promote this all-embracing sense of openness and forward-thinking as the game attempts to free itself from the shackles of negative perceptions that continue to be a hindrance.

Another frightful stooshie on the gender debate during Open week at Royal Troon, however, will be a backwards step just when things are moving forward.