Oh to be young again eh? Those anguish laden Mondays spent chiselling out the weekly column have given my face more lines than the London Underground while an occasional peek into the cracked mirror reveals an increasingly saggy figure which is shrouded in skin that doesn’t really fit my body anymore and has about the same texture as an elephant’s knee that’s been soaked in vinegar.

Yes, we are all potential fodder for the limpet tentacles of the ageing process as it slowly creeps and coils itself around our ankles before entangling us in its withering embrace. It’s no wonder we feel old, of course, when golf keeps getting younger and younger.

Down at Dundonald Links at the weekend, Swedish 15-year-old Julia Engstrom became the youngest winner of the Ladies British Amateur Championship. Over in the USA, meanwhile, the remarkable Lydia Ko scored her 13th LPGA Tour win at the age of just 19.

Earlier this month, Ko lost in a play-off to 18-year-old Brooke Henderson in the Women’s PGA Championship. On that same day, Great Britain & Ireland’s Curtis Cup team, with an average age of 21, beat their US counterparts, with an average age of just 18, in the transatlantic tussle at Dun Laoghaire.

This vibrant, youthful vibe has been in stark contrast to the other goings on in the game over the same period with golf being lambasted for its fusty, out-dated attitudes following the failure of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers to gain the required majority in a vote to allow women members. As many anticipated, the top brass at Muirfield have announced they are going to have another go at it with a fresh ballot pencilled in for the end of year. If only Brexit was that simple eh?

This Friday, meanwhile, the membership at Royal Troon will hold a special general meeting on the male-only issue with the likelihood that it will open up.

The times they continue to change but, amid all the sabre-rattling and fist-shaking about men doing this and women doing that, there are other areas of change that the fairer sex still won’t touch with a 3-wood. And it’s probably a good thing. It’s a decade now since the Royal & Ancient amended the Open entry form and allowed leading female golfers – those who had finished in the top-five of the women’s majors – the opportunity to gain a place in golf’s oldest championship through regional and then final qualifying. Admittedly, it’s the kind of formidable task that would make scaling Everest look like a brisk stride up the Gleniffer Braes but the fact not one player has given it a go in 10 years simply highlights that the women are just not interested. And why would they be? We all remember the weird sideshow of a teenage Michelle Wie competing against the men in a PT Barnum-style roll-up, roll-up production that was an uncomfortable exercise in corporate exploitation and one that descended into a ghastly media circus. The pressure and scrutiny during this series of increasingly damaging, cringe-worthy spectacles was remorseless and did nothing for Wie or the women’s game as a whole. Mercifully, that particular ship has sailed and today’s posse of teenage talents, with Ko at the vanguard, are helping female golf make positive, purposeful statements on its own terms. That’s the way it should be.

While golf’s return to the Olympics has been hit by a spate of high-profile withdrawals on the men’s front, the likes of Ko, Henderson and Lexi Thompson will showcase the women’s game with a fresh-faced energy, charisma and talent that continues to drive the sport forward.

AND ANOTHER THING

While our male amateurs are enjoying an excellent 2016, things are fairly hum-drum on the Scottish men’s professional front. Only two players from an initial entry of 25 home-based pros made the cut in last weekend’s Scottish Hydro Challenge while results from our campaigners on the main European circuit this year have been modest to say the least.

Russell Knox, the world No 26, is carrying the saltire superbly but there are not many backing him up, with Richie Ramsay the next best at 149th. With the Scottish Open and the Open looming, the cradle of the game will be in the spotlight over the next couple of weeks. We could do with more of our players seizing some of the attention too.