You’ll probably not be interested in the slightest to know that I do enjoy cooking. Saying that, I bet this modest revelation has now got you thinking.

I reckon you’ll be sitting there and imagining me in the throes of culinary endeavour, gently mopping my brow with a dish cloot as I delicately place a couple of sauteed partridge breast fillets on top of an elegantly constructed tower of seasonal vegetables while furnishing the plate with strategic skid marks of tarragon jus to finish with a flourish?

Either that or you’re just envisaging a ham-fisted nincompoop whose idea of pioneering, gastronomic adventure is tossing some hand-torn basil over a bloomin’ Pot Noodle? Yes, I thought that would be the case.

Anyway, this cuisine-related meander was sparked by the unveiling last week of Jon Rahm’s menu for the Champions Dinner ahead of the Masters.

I don’t know about you but as far as I’m concerned, the level of oohing and aahing that’s now generated by some grub served up to a few fellas in green jackets is about as nonsensical as the fawning, coochy-cooing that goes on during the utterly unwatchable Par-3 contest.

Ah, those cherished, dewy-eyed Masters traditions, eh? In this age of relentless, all-consuming coverage of this, that and the other, you half expect to press the red button on your TV remote control during tournament week and find a channel dedicated entirely to the Champions Dinner, with the great Jim Nantz providing a running commentary of whispering reverence as Larry Mize slooters some of Mama Rahm’s classic lentil stew down his tie.

Mama Rahm’s stew, by the way, is on the menu along with a variety of other tasty tapas, a Basque crab salad, a chunk of ribeye and some turbot with white asparagus. It sounds like something this correspondent would rustle up when I can’t be bothered to do my signature Pot Noodle.

But let’s move on. If the Masters menu tickled your taste buds, then Rahm’s own words provided plenty of food for thought too.

Absent from a rip-roaring Players Championship the other week due to his defection to LIV Golf, and unable to defend his American Express and Genesis Invitational titles already this season because of his PGA Tour suspension, Rahm spoke candidly about what he was missing.

“I'm not going to lie,” he said. “For everybody who said this would be easy, some things have been, but not being able to defend some titles that mean a lot to me hasn't. I still watch golf because I love watching it. It's hard (not being there). But it's done. It's in the past. It (joining LIV) is a decision I made, and I'm comfortable with it. But I'm hoping I can come back.”

As the Spaniard spoke on a media tele-conference, there was a wistfulness to his words; a sense of yearning that could’ve been accompanied by the melancholic piano arrangement at the end of an old episode of The Hulk when Doctor David Banner walked off into the sunset.

Of course, plenty observers will say, ‘boo hoo, you knew what you were getting yourself into when $450 million was shoved in your face by the Saudis’. Or words to that effect. Sympathy, in many quarters, will be in short supply.

The idea, though, of the reigning Masters champion watching the PGA Tour’s flagship event unravelling at Sawgrass on the TV remains a peculiar reality of these fractured times.

Eamon Lynch, the Golf Channel broadcaster and Golfweek columnist, made a shrewd observation about Rahm’s views on a recent LIV event in Hong Kong. “Rahm praised the people and the food,” wrote Lynch. “He is a competitor reduced to a concierge.”

For a fierce competitor like Rahm, who revels in the cut-and-thrust of championship golf and thrives in the atmosphere of the big occasion, those kind of cutting barbs are a sobering reminder of what he has sacrificed. Regardless of all the millions that have been tossed his way, there must be a huge feeling of unfulfillment.

Here he is, competing in 54-hole events, in front of relatively sparse crowds, with music playing in the background and with a reduced media presence while his old peers on the PGA Tour are going toe-to-toe in a thrilling finish to a Players Championship that went right down to the wire. Money can buy you a lot of things but what would Rahm have given to be involved in a finale like that?

LIV’s signing of Rahm was a mighty coup. In many ways, we thought it would be a watershed moment for the men’s game; a tipping point that would bring an end to all the poaching and the defections, help restore some order and accelerate the move towards a united front in the splintered upper echelons.

There’s still a heck of a sorting out to do, though. The journey towards a peace deal continues to be a long and winding road. “I just want to see the best in the world being able to compete against the best in the world again,” said Rahm. The world No 3 will get his own chance to do that at the Masters and in the rest of the majors.

Away from those big four events, though, he'll still be an outsider looking in. Perhaps Rahm’s Champions Dinner menu should have included some humble pie?