But few have surely been so egregious. What we saw on days perfect for golf – largely calm and overcast – was a bastardised version of the greatest game of all.

The LACC is undoubtedly a wonderful course, full of nuance and strategic challenge. It is therefore a place that should provoke detailed thought and analysis before almost every shot. But it didn’t on day one of America’s national championship. Not for the elite field, one packed with players able to launch their drives vast distances. For those men, the LACC is essentially a museum piece, a historic relic from days gone by. 

You’ve no doubt heard this before, but it will remain true until the USGA and the R&A are able to circumvent the financial self-interests of the equipment making community and roll back the golf ball. Armed with turbocharged balls and frying-pan sized drivers, professional golfers at the sharpest end of our sport hit their drives distances that all but completely negate any semblance of thought or subtlety. 

So it is that we are not going to see real golf being played at the LACC this week. Not proper golf. Not golf in all its glory. Instead, we will be treated to yet another major championship that is dominated by only one aspect of what should be a multi-dimensional game. Sadly, distance will yet again overwhelm every other question that could and should be asked of these highly skilled competitors. 

None of this, it must be said, is a criticism of the players. They are clearly an enormously talented bunch and they are doing what they should be doing: taking advantage of whatever means they can in order to shoot the lowest scores possible.  

Then there is another response to our argument that the game we see and the pros play is negatively affected – at least aesthetically – by the promotion of science in what, at its best, is an art. You will surely hear that the players today are bigger. That they are better athletes (a general point that is inarguable). And that they are simply better than the stars of years past. All of which is uttered by those who have never seen pictures of Arnold Palmer at the top of his game in the late 1950s and early ‘60s. That, folks, was an athlete. 

I’ve also heard on numerous occasions that any criticism of the way golf is played at the highest level is typically uttered by dinosaurs like myself, those who simply cannot accept that things have moved on. Then there are those who say that today’s game is not only different but superior to that played in the past.

Nonsense. 

While the “different” tag is indisputable, I take exception to the “superior” part. In fact, the biggest frustration today is that these incredible players do not get the chance to display their talents to the extent they should. Because the ball goes so far, modern players like Rory McIlroy could probably get around most courses with only a half-set of clubs in his bag. He’s certainly not needing to carry anything longer than, say, a 6-iron. Not too long ago, Dustin Johnson famously used that club but once to reach a par-4 over the course of a whole PGA Tour season.

That then is the biggest sadness of all. Combined with the fact that the modern ball doesn’t go sideways enough – no one is playing like Lee Trevino and Seve Ballesteros anymore – the paucity of questions asked of the leading players is, to this observer, maybe the most pathetic aspect of today’s professional game. We all know the players can hit wedges because they do so on the vast majority of holes. But I have no idea how good anyone is with a 3-iron in his hands.

A quick thought: Speaking of Trevino and Ballesteros, if indeed no one plays anything like those shot-making geniuses anymore, how can today’s game be better than before? I mean really.

Anyway, things are likely to get worse before the end of the weekend. Obligated to present pretty much the same challenge on day two of the championship, the USGA presented the course in almost the identical fashion we saw on day one, maybe a little more difficult. That was only fair to the field. But once the cut was made and the weekend arrived, things changed. In order to keep the scores within what they will see as an acceptable margin, the blue-bloods of Far Hills took action. 

So, prepare yourselves, golf fans. Prepare yourself for the sight of greens that will venture close to the edge of insanity in terms of speed and firmness. Prepare yourself for pin positions (never, ever “hole locations”) that will be close to the edges of the aforementioned putting surfaces. Thus, the course being played Saturday and Sunday will resemble LACC, but it will not ask the questions architect George Thomas wanted it to ask. It will be a modified version and not in a good way.

"The USGA (and by extension the R&A) this week promised that doing nothing is not an option. Let’s hope they get to doing something soon."

Examples of similar outrages are not hard to find. They are everywhere, but let’s use a hole that every golfer will recognise to illustrate the point: the 18th on the Old Course at St. Andrews. Back in the days when a good drive by even a really good player finished somewhere between Granny Clark’s Wynd (the path across the fairway) and the Valley of Sin, the depression that fronts the historic putting surface, this was one of the most fascinating holes in all of golf.

Even the greatest players would stand over their balls and be confused as to just what shot to play next, any and all strategies dictated by the relationship between the position of the ball, the Valley and the pin. But no more. Today, in anything approaching normal weather conditions, the last hole on golf’s most famous course is, for the leading professionals, a long par-3. They don’t even have to hit driver; 3-wood is typically enough. 

So it is that the biggest point of such a wonderful hole has been lost, a sad scenario we have seen repeatedly repeated at the LACC this week. It is nothing short of madness, a form of self-harm no other sport seems to tolerate (see major league baseball’s banning of metal bats). 

And all because the ball goes too far and too straight. The solution is obvious. At the professional level, the players should be hitting a sphere that spins more, doesn’t fly nearly so far and moves sideways in the air a lot more readily. The USGA (and by extension the R&A) this week promised that doing nothing is not an option. Let’s hope they get to doing something soon. Then, especially at events of real stature, we can get back to proper golf played by proper players on proper courses.