By all accounts, the forthcoming letter Blane Dodds, the chief executive of Scottish Golf, receives from sportscotland outlining cuts in funding will be opened with the same kind of peering, trepidation adopted by Donald Tusk when he unfurled Theresa May’s epistle on Brexit the other day.

“We are expecting a formal letter in the next couple of weeks,” said Dodds as he braced himself for a significant gap developing in his budget for the amateur game’s governing body. The anticipated reduction in Government funding for sport, due to a strategic shift towards public health initiatives (is sport not healthy?), has been well documented recently and golf is not going to be immune to the financial cuts totalling some £2 million annually in the collective sportscotland war chest.

Dodds and his troops have not just been sitting idly by awaiting the grim tidings, though. Stephen McAllister, the former European Tour winner and a canny, amiable, hand-shaking businessman, has been drafted in on a consultancy basis to offer his considerable global expertise in sourcing new avenues of revenue.

“As an organisation we’ve got to protect ourselves if things do change,” said Dodds. “But this is not a reactionary thing (to funding cuts). We have been talking about this for some time. If you look at other countries and golf federations around the world and how they raise funding, there’s an awful lot more money coming into these countries than in Scotland, the home of golf.”

You don’t need to look too far to discover that. In fact, you just have to gaze through the cracks in the mortar on Hadrian’s Wall to find numerical differences. The England Golf Partnership is to receive £6.32 million over the next four years from Sport England to bolster participation in golf while a further £2.25 million is being ploughed into developing talent. Here in the cradle of the game, meanwhile, the Government-backed Scottish Golf Support Ltd, a programme aimed at helping the amateur-to-professional transition, has been scrapped. Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that England have 11 players in next week’s Masters and Scotland just two? When it comes to political box-ticking, success at the top level, whether amateur or professional, and a show-us-your-medals mentality will no doubt shape the thinking of those dishing out the money.

“We get around 25 per cent of our income from the Scottish Government, which is roughly £1 million,” said Dodds.

In the country that gave the game to the world, it would seem almost ludicrous to jeopardise this cherished, national institution that brings so much benefit to the country as a whole. “We have been told we will be getting less money through the Government, and through sportscotland we have been emphasising the value of golf, not only from a sports point of view but from an economic benefit point of view,” added Dodds, who is possibly wishing the golf-daft Alex Salmond was still First Minister. “There are 15,000 people working in golf in Scotland alone, it generates £4.4 billion to the UK economy and £14 million from tax raising. There are roughly 200,000 club members but 750,000 playing in Scotland. We have a ready-made market. We’re not criticising anyone (involved in the funding decision-making), we are just trying to build a case for golf and we are still negotiating. We’ve got a fantastic case. We have 600 clubs and they are huge community assets. We are pitching our story in in a very positive way. We need to support golf more, not less.”

The Scottish Golf high heid yins are certainly not going cap in hand to the purse-string pullers – “I'll be going cap in hand to businesses” chuckled McAllister – but those at the sharp end of financial affairs are remaining upbeat.

The well-travelled McAllister, who still juggles his various business wheelings and dealings with the odd appearance on the Senior Tour, is not one to sit back and wait on potential investors knocking on his door and he knows that golf in Scotland remains a terrific bargaining tool. “It’s a huge vehicle for business throughout the world,” said McAllister, who has also helped to lure investment into the Scottish PGA. “Every day in my life there is conversation about all manner of things but it always comes back to ‘how’s your golf?’ It’s a great default position and surely we must benefit from that?”

If you see McAllister trampling around in the rough or guddling about in the gorse at your home club, then don’t panic. He’s doing his bit to aid future investment. “I always have the odd, mad idea and I always thought that every time I found a logoed golf ball I should contact that company because someone within it plays golf," he reasoned. "Think about that? We have to stay positive.”