Such opportunism deserves a stamp of approval.

I wonder what Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian communications expert who, in 1964, coined the famous phrase "the medium is the message", would have made of Wahl’s statement?

If I understand him correctly he would surely have embraced the Wahl communique.

McLuhan proposed that a communication medium itself, not the messages it carries, should be the primary focus of study. He showed that artifacts such as media affect any society by their characteristics, or content.

On this basis, the message - “We’ve beaten the Persians! Rejoice! Get the wine in!!” - counts for considerably less than the means by which it was conveyed. The idea of a man running a long and punishing distance from a place called Marathon has transformed itself into a central part of our modern mass fitness movement.

That ancient postman has even, ultimately, delivered the likes of me from start to finish in a London Marathon.

Which brings me to Rory McIlroy.

I don’t know what his messages were as he wore a live microphone while competing on the first day of the Masters golf tournament in Augusta earlier this month, taking part in an interview with CBS as he strode up the fairway at the ninth hole.

But the message of the medium was profound. Here was one of the major sporting events in the world, and it was turned, effectively, into a backdrop for something else - McIlroy using it to promote himself and the sport in a deeper way.

Many golf fans gave favourable reviews to the insights provided by the Irish former world number one. But doubts remain.

Even McIlroy himself voiced them two months earlier when he tweeted: "It would take a little bit of convincing for me [to wear a mic during a round] but I’d certainly be open to it.”

Someone, somewhere did the necessary convincing in the meantime.

But then perhaps it wasn’t so surprising to witness such coverage arriving in golf given the way

ESPN has made on-field interviews with mic'd-up Major League Baseball players part of its Sunday Night Baseball broadcast.

Where are the limits of this approach, however? And where should they be?

Here’s the question. What’s most important - competing, or being seen, and heard, to be competing?

To an extent, golf is one of the sports best fitted to such an approach, given that there is a preponderance of preparation, and plain walking, before the crucial shot-playing.

A time, as McIlroy demonstrated to powerful effect, to reflect upon the doubts and possibilities playing through the mind.

One question not yet answered though - did such an approach help or hinder him in the long run? For all the insights he shared with the wider world on the ninth hole McIlroy, despite being one of the favourites, failed to make the cut after posting a five-over total of 149 after two rounds.

"Now I’m heading back to my hotel and feeling pretty down. Once upon a day my first drink might have been a Jameson. Now it’ll be sparkling water. Great…"

Have such thoughts been uttered and recorded by this amiable Irishman? Perhaps. And perhaps we will see them in a new Netflix production in the near future…

Golf, baseball, sports where there is regular, episodic interaction rather than a continual hurly burly lend themselves more to the live mic approach.

But who is to say where the limits should be?

While rugby union referees have been mic’d up for many years, allowing us to hear their usually courteous if strained interactions with players, and more recently interactions with the video referees in the stand, the idea of doing the same for a player, particularly a forward, would appear ludicrous. "Get your f***ing finger out of my f***ing eye, you b*s*a*d!"

Likewise for football. Can you imagine the oath-strewn output of 22 striving players? Then again, there could be some choice insights: "Right. This time I’m leaving my foot in."..."I know that wasn’t our throw but I’m going to shout for it anyway"…"Over the leg I go and now I’m screaming for a penalty…gotcha!"

And what of athletics? Imagine a mic-d up 100 metres sprinter: "Crap start… transition…relax FFS!!...dip!...did I get second?" Vastly illuminating.

Or imagine swimming: "Turning now and...blubbulbublb..."

There has been a lot of chat about "storytelling" recently when people try to imagine better ways of marketing sports. Only this week the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee  announced it has hired a digital company to re-shape its online content, with storytelling about and by athletes likely to become a central feature.

It’s not a bad idea of course, although it’s hardly new. But the truth is that some sporting stories are too short - or too fragmentary - to be worth the telling…