The relish with which a four-year-old incident has been raked over this week has highlighted that, in the court of public and peer-group opinion, Colin Montgomerie will always be stuck with his dubious ball-drop in Indonesia.

But the revival of Jakarta-gate has also told us something beyond the flaws of Montgomerie and his clumsy accuser, Sandy Lyle. It has reminded us that the C-word remains the foulest of insults, especially in golf.

Cheating remains a hugely sensitive issue because golf is the only leading sport that continues to lay a claim to purity. In that it stands alone. Football shed its innocence centuries ago and most others have followed, including the gentlemen's game of cricket. We have even had cheating in the Paralympics.

Golf continues to look people in the eye and insist that it is 99.9 per cent clean but the high-profile row over Montgomerie has reopened that argument - and led to some slightly unsettling conclusions.

“Maybe I am getting old, but I seem to be having more discussions these days about incidents which are less than satisfactory,” said Andrew Coltart, the golfer who acts as an expert for the BBC.

Today there will be drugs testing of players at the Open Championship for the first time in the event's history. Peter Dawson, the chief executive of the Royal and Ancient, has volunteered to be the first to provide a sample, raising the obvious jokes about whether they have a test for claret.

Golf would be naive if it did not think that there will be some players willing to explore the benefits of steroids, but the issues that cause Coltart and others to fret have nothing to do with drugs.

What troubles them are cases such as that involving Montgomerie; whether the ball has been dropped in the right place, the spike mark illegally repaired, the rough trampled down to improve the lie.

In particular, what is of mounting concern is the failure of the disciplinary system to address infractions properly or consistently, prompting a debate among the players at Loch Lomond last week when the tournament committee discussed how a crackdown might be enforced.

The deliberations followed the incident at the Celtic Manor Wales Open in June when Richie Ramsay was caught on television pushing down the turf with his foot after a rain break. Ramsay was invited to review the video but, despite disquiet among officials, declared himself innocent and no action was taken.

The episode summed up all that is good and bad about the sport's rules. Ramsay was being asked to call the foul against himself, a fine golfing tradition that goes back as far as wooden balls. But the Scot's unwillingness to do so also highlighted the difficulty of determining whether a player has erred and the reluctance of the referees to be decisive.

Can they prove an offence? How should they weigh the reputation of the game against that of the player accused? These have never been easy questions to answer, but it is more treacherous territory than ever with so much money resting on the outcome and the thought of potential litigation.

In short, golf is caught halfway between the old days when, according to Coltart, “a player would be taken round the back and told in no uncertain terms to cut something iffy out” and the understandable desire for more modern, defined regulation.

The increased glare of television makes it all the more likely that incidents will be highlighted, but the huge profile of the players will ensure they fight hard to protect their reputations.

This is the awkward place in which golf finds itself, with a player such as Montgomerie perhaps wondering which is the worst of two outcomes - the calling of a two-shot penalty at the time by a decisive referee determined to stamp down even if intent to gain advantage cannot be proven. Or the lingering doubts, the whispers and the sense among fellow professionals that he might have got away with a breach of rules.