Okay. Strictly speaking, Australia’s 2013 Masters champion says his decision not to make himself available for the national team at the forthcoming Games has been taken “as a result of an extremely busy playing schedule around the time of the Olympics and other commitments, both personal and professional."

Last month Australia’s captain Ian Baker-Finch told a Melbourne radio station that he thought both Scott and Jason Day were excited about representing their country at the Games, to which golf has returned for the first time since 1904.

But Scott now says that Baker-Finch and other officials are “understanding of my position.”

His position being, essentially, one of indifference.

Baker-Finch has clearly been suspending disbelief as Scott is already on record as saying that the Rio competition will be akin to an “exhibition event”, and that winning an Olympic medal is “nothing I’ve ever aspired to do.”

I think we can feel a “Why Oh Why?” coming on, can’t we? And here it is. “Why Oh Why can’t the Olympics be restricted to sports which consider it the paramount competition?”

That is a very strong line of argument which militates for the purity of the Games. Athletics, swimming, cycling, rowing, sailing – when we watch competitors in these sports at the Olympics, we see them striving for their ultimate. The Games stand top of their podium.

Not so, however, for sports such as football, tennis, basketball and ice hockey.

Football could be deemed an honourable exception, given the unique configuration of teams under the 1996 compromise made between the International Olympic Committee and FIFA, whereby countries have to field male squads of players aged under 23 but can supplement with three over-age players.

For teams thus constituted, it could be argued, the Olympics are paramount. And the recent announcement that Neymar will be involved, with Barcelona’s blessing, in seeking that elusive Games gold for the hosts in Rio this summer underlined the seriousness with which this category of the Olympics is being viewed.

But what about tennis? Sure, earning the 2012 Olympic title at Wimbledon kick-started Andy Murray to winning his first Grand Slam events. And those events count for more.

The relative importance is the same as for golf, which recently announced that Olympic gold medallists will receive byes into all four of the majors – the Games as a qualifying tournament for the biggies!!

The dynamic is similar for the men’s basketball and ice hockey events, where the stars of the NBA and NHL are drafted in to do a job before returning to the main business in hand.

Last month I spoke to Hayley Wickenheiser, Canada’s four-time Olympic ice hockey champion, and she made a very clear case for the purity of the Games, whether summer or winter.

“The men’s team is a different sort of beast,” she said. “NHL players are pulled together for a couple of weeks every four years for the Olympics. It’s a short-term thing - come in, go back. For the women’s team the Olympics is the pinnacle, and the public see that.”

On the other side of that debate are the factors of boosting the marketability of the Games, and of having, wherever possible, the world’s best performers at the world’s greatest all-round sporting show.

It is a debate that will continue - and indeed, if you wish to register your opinion, why not take advantage of the poll on whether golf should be included at Rio 2016 which is currently open on insidethegames here?

In the meantime, the status of golf at the Games has been bolstered by statements from such as Ireland’s three-times major winner Padraig Harrington, who says he would “love to be an Olympic athlete”, and Jordan Spieth, the United States' two-time major champion, who describes the Olympic golf tournament as being “like a fifth major”.

Some may be angry with Scott. Unfairly so. Because this is simply a case of an elite sports person telling it like is. Which often doesn’t sit well with the Sporting Establishment. Boats are to be rowed, not rocked.

For instance – Murray’s comments to the Mail on Sunday in which he admitted that he has been suspicious at times that opponents may have been doping, and that he had been puzzled by the fact that “they don’t seem to be getting tired”, have been lambasted by Boris Becker.

Germany’s six-times grand slam winner, who now coaches world number one Novak Djokovic, insisted: “To assume something because somebody has won a Grand Slam or is fitter is totally out of order."

He added: “Tennis is an Olympic sport, all the top guys I know for a fact are tested a lot. Everybody’s clean, so we can’t spread rumours….I love my sport, I defend my sport, that’s where I’m coming from. I’m not speaking on Novak’s behalf.”

That said, back in 1995, Becker was fined for casting aspersions on the performance of Austria’s Thomas Muster, who had beaten him over five sets in the Monte Carlo Masters final despite having been on a drip overnight in hospital because of dehydration in his semi-final.

The same ritualistic dance occurred at this year’s Welsh Open snooker when Ronnie O’Sullivan elected not to complete a maximum 147 break upon hearing that the prize was £10,000 ($14,300/€12,700) something he deemed “a bit too cheap really”.

O’Sullivan’s view was that a maximum break was worth more – and he could afford to make his point. Some were thrilled by his gesture, others deplored his action as being petulant. He was calling it like it was.

World Snooker chairman Barry Hearn commented: “Players have a duty to the fans to deliver the best standard and entertainment they can.

"Anything less than playing to your best ability is unacceptable and disrespectful to the paying public.”

Sometimes the truth hurts. But sportsmen and women should be allowed to express that truth as they see it, as long as they stay on the right side of the slander and libel laws.

Some more easily expressed home truths could certainly add a new tone to some of our most popular sporting idioms.

“We gave it 71 per cent tonight. It wasn’t worth more.”

“It ain’t over until it’s over – but if you’re three down with five minutes left, might as well save your strength.”

“Follow your dreams, believe in yourself, and you can do anything. Within reason…”