Golf’s return to the Games after a 112-year absence might have been a sight for some sore eyes, but clearly not for Scott’s.

Dawn Fraser who is in the opinion of many Australia’s greatest Olympian, led the chorus of those appalled at Scott’s formal announcement last week that he will not be taking part.

Others like Steve Moneghetti were more conciliatory – disappointed but understanding that perhaps the Games would not have been on Scott’s bucket list.

Those of us who perhaps equated golf’s inclusion in the Games from 2016 with that of tennis, maybe assumed that it would indeed be embraced as widely by the golfers as it has by racquet swingers.

And the signs were good early with the bigger issue being which country Rory McIlroy might represent rather than whether he would be there at all.

Having opted to play for Ireland he still intends to be, as does the other top Australian Jason Day, rising star Jordan Spieth and recent US Masters’ winner Danny Willett. And the women, it seems, will all be there.

So Scott’s decision is hardly reflective of the rest of the sport nor does it spell disaster for golf at the Games.

Some commentators, like David Culbert, have suggested that Scott might regret his decision later. That might be when his daughter, not yet two, is old enough to ask him why he was not. But maybe by then, the answer could be different, if he still has the chance in Tokyo in 2020.

But to come back to the comparison with tennis. In London four years ago Andy Murray beat Roger Federer in an epic final staged on Wimbledon’s centre court.

In the women’s it was Serena Williams over Maria Sharapova, whilst the doubles golds were garnered by the Bryan brothers and the Williams sisters.

But then something that Moneghetti said in his defence of Adam Scott made absolute sense. The marathon man pondered that he personally grew thinking about going to the Olympics, whilst conceding that Scott might have thought similarly of the Masters.

Tennis has now been back in the Olympics since 1988, after it had also been on the sidelines for many decades. The initial reaction from the top players was mixed.

But today’s top tennis players actually find themselves in the same situation as Moneghetti – having grown up with the possibility of an Olympic Games gold firmly before their eyes, perhaps even on an even footing with a Grand Slam – and almost certainly on a much higher pedestal it would seem than a Davis or Federation Cup victory.