The folly of inviting a former daily newspaper hack turned golf scribbler to a supposedly serious business meeting soon became apparent to those in charge.

It seems they had laboured under the misapprehension I might have something worthwhile to contribute, though they were soon disabused of that notion.

While I feel I ultimately did contribute, my instinct is that not all in the room would agree.

Fairly soon into the roundtable discussion about what might or might not draw more eyeballs to the site there began to be comparisons to other sports.

The general gist was along the lines of ‘AFL is popular perhaps we could include some AFL related content on the site’.

It was at this point I wore out my welcome by noting that pornography also seemed popular and perhaps some graphic images on the home page might lift our rankings in the search engines?

It was cheeky and not well received but the point remains valid. Many in golf seem to believe the game itself has little appeal and requires peripheral distractions to attract new players and audiences.

"The lack of confidence in golf as a product has always struck me as somewhat odd given the joys it brings people in their millions." - Rod Morri.

One need look no further than the nonsensical LIV tagline of ‘Golf But Louder’ for evidence. The game of golf has no ‘volume’ so the notion of it being ‘louder’ is fanciful.

And playing loud music and creating ‘party’ holes doesn’t make the game louder it just encourages loutish behaviour.

(Some people like loutish behaviour and that’s OK. I don’t like it and that’s ok, too.)

At the end of the day, LIV’s actual product is the same as the PGA and DP World Tours … guys who are really good at playing golf … playing golf.

But we digress. Professional golf is one thing and trying to make it more like other sports perhaps makes sense.

Attracting people to recreational golf, however, is a whole different story.

The lack of confidence in golf as a product has always struck me as somewhat odd given the joys it brings people in their millions.

Having said that, it is a difficult message to get across, particularly in a world that is constantly demanding shorter and faster. Therein, though, perhaps lies the answer.

Instead of complaining that golf takes four hours perhaps we should lean into it?

Most people feel the pace of modern life is increasing and golf is a great antidote to that.

There aren’t many opportunities for most people to get that sort of time away from everyday life and as those who already play will attest, their weekly round is a godsend.

The arrival of LIV has created a lot of extra noise around professional golf but for most who play the game (and those in the business of attracting new players) it has little real impact.

Golf as a pastime has survived hundreds of years and if we can simply convince more people to try it for themselves it will easily survive hundreds more.