Given that their national football team has just qualified for a first major championship since the Normans rattled up Caerphilly Castle, the good folk of Wales have probably forgotten about the prospect of an Open Championship coming to the green, green grass of home amid all this Euro 2016-related revelry.

It’s probably a good job because it’s not going to be happening any time soon. There had been increased chatter in recent years about the possibility of the game’s oldest major heading to Wales for the first time, with the delightful links at Royal Porthcawl flinging its hat into the ring as potential host.

As a venue for a series of European Tour events, the Walker Cup, the Curtis Cup, several Amateur Championships and the 2014 Senior British Open down the years, Porthcawl boasts an impressive portfolio of top-level golfing events but, for the time being, we can safely say that an Open Championship coming to this southern part of the Principality is, ahem, a Bridgend too far. “We are quite happy with 10 venues at the moment,” said Martin Slumbers, the chief executive of the Royal & Ancient, after confirming that Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland would be staging the 2019 Open earlier this week. “That’s all we’re looking at. There are no discussions going on about any other course. This (Portrush) was the big decision to make and we’re looking forward to getting this one going. I think it’s important not to get too far ahead of ourselves.”

Of course, getting ahead of ourselves is part of the bricks and mortar of the modern day media. So what about 2021? That is the year when the Open will be staged for the 150th time and the obvious choice of venue for such a festivity would be the Old Course at the home of golf in St Andrews. Ever since 1990, St Andrews, which held this July's contest, has staged an Open every five years – a more frequent host than any other course on the rota– and the R&A would have to break this particular cycle if the powers that be wanted the 150th Open to be in the Auld Grey Toun.

In 1971, the 100th championship was held at Royal Birkdale – St Andrews held it the year before – but since the millennium Open of 2000 at the Old Course the R&A has embraced the championship’s milestone events more readily. Given that he is only a few weeks into his new job, the canny Mr Slumbers is hardly going to reveal the inner most thoughts of the R&A top brass but he did hint at the obvious scheduling of St Andrews for 2021. “St Andrews staging an Open every five years is a relatively modern development in Open history and I don’t think our hands are tied to stick to that rota,” he said. “We’re not going to switch between England and Scotland, we’re not going to go alternate years. We simply try to look at where is the best place next.”

The early days of Slumbers’s tenure have been a bit of a whirlwind and the hasty re-jigging of the television contract for the Open, after the BBC decided to pull the plug a year early, was a robust introduction to the job. “It’s been a busy number of weeks but it will be a busier few years,” he added. “They (the BBC) asked us just after the Open to get out of their contract. Of course we were disappointed but Sky stepped in with great gusto.”

Given the gee-whiz gadgetry that Sky employ, there will probably be cameras here, there and everywhere at Royal Troon for next year’s Open. “We’ve actually got our team at Troon at the moment with brand new people looking at where to put the TV cameras,” he said. “I’ll keep quiet about what we are going to do, but I think you will find that some of the pictures next year will be very exciting.”

Having joined forces with Sky, there remains the prospect of another alliance for the R&A; a merger with the Ladies’ Golf Union. The two St Andrews-based bodies unveiled that they were having “exploratory talks” about a union earlier this year and these chin-wags continue. “Talks are progressing very well,” said Slumbers. “We’ve been having a lot of discussions over the last few weeks and I’m meeting with them (the LGU) soon and hope we will get that to a conclusion. I’ve done a lot of mergers in my time but putting time scales on them is difficult. It is better to get it right.”