It’s tricky because players are as diverse in the amount of thought they give the game as they are in the way they swing the club. (Think Peter Thomson/Boo Weekley)

But the highest profile players undoubtedly have influence and with that comes a responsibility, a fact brought into sharp focus this week by World No.3 Jon Rahm.

Speaking on the popular Fore Play podcast, Rahm was asked his thoughts on the biggest topic in the game (before LIV) – distance.

Granted, it was less than two minutes of an almost 90-minute podcast but there was much to unpack in what the Spaniard had to say because it plays into a common narrative about distance that ignores the real issue.

Now let me start by saying Rahm seems a likeable and reasonably thoughtful guy. But he makes many of the same mistakes his peers make when considering the question of distance.

His opening gambit is to outline the improvements in all the technology surrounding the game that is not clubs and balls.

Things like body screening and workout routines that target specific areas of the body to increase power and efficiency.

All of which is true, and if you were a player who had invested an awful lot of time and effort into studying and taking advantage of these things you would rightly feel you were entitled to the benefits they provide.

But it misses the point – or the most important point at least – about distance and that is that it focusses on the cause rather than the effect.

Even if Rahm is right about club and ball technology only being ‘a little bit better’ (disputable but for the purposes of the argument let’s accept it at face value) it actually doesn’t matter.

The problem with distance is its impact on golf courses and how they play.

Rahm, like many before him, rightly points out that other sports have seen the same sort of advances in athletes, and it hasn’t been to the detriment of those sports.

But golf is not other sports. In fact, that is one of the very best things about the game. It is unique.

Unlike almost all other mainstream sports, the playing field in golf is integral to every part of the competition.

A basketball court is a basketball court irrespective of where it is. The surface changes occasionally in tennis but has little significant impact on the actual playing of the game.

But in golf, the course is paramount and any advancements which have a significant impact on its role in the game should be carefully considered.

As Golf Australia magazine Architecture Editor Mike Clayton has noted more than once, there was a time when the arm wrestle between player and course was too heavily slanted in favour of the course because of the rudimentary equipment of the time.

Surely we can now make the case that the pendulum – for the elite player at least – has swung too far the other way?

"It misses the point – or the most important point at least – about distance and that is that it focusses on the cause rather than the effect." - Rod Morri.

And even if technology isn’t the problem, it is unquestionably the answer despite the fact Rahm is adamant it’s not.

“I think it hinders the game when they try to roll back the ball and change things with the technology of the clubs,” he says while simultaneously suggesting lengthening courses is also not a solution.

While we agree on the latter we will have to agree to disagree on the former, especially if Rahms next prediction – of golfers routinely driving 380 yards – comes to fruition.

It’s not difficult to understand why top players feel defensive when it is suggested distance is a problem because – in their minds – distance is the result of a lot of hard work on their part.

But all golfers – from the best in the world to us recreational players – have a responsibility to think a little more deeply about the game than simply through the prism of our own experience.

Jon Rahm included.