Betfair Official Blog

Souled out: golf is in danger of becoming a worldwide cash chase

Bill Elliott wonders if the 'European Tour' is in its final throes

Next Sunday morning I am being forced to rise out of my pit to slide a few miles along the road from my home to Farnborough Airport where I shall be offered a small bucket of champagne before being carried by six nubile stewardesses on to a private jet and flown to Dubai. Forgive me.

The reason I am having to endure this trip is to witness the announcement of a new, season-ending tournament that will not only break all previous money records on the European Tour, it will in effect trumpet a new phase in world golf. The future, whether we like it or not, is now with us.

Much has been made recently about the way pro golf is going outside the United States. Mostly, of course, it is going east. And the reason it is heading this way is because this is now where the serious money lives. If we think this cash is serious now then in a few years time we will be referring to it as peanuts as China and the rest of the emerging markets in the Far East continue to grow at their current furious rate.

This is good news for those players who enjoy travel as much as they enjoy making money but not so good for those of us who like to watch competitive golf in real time. Consider this: In 2008 Great Britain and Ireland will host seven professional tournaments - this includes The Open Championship - while the Middle and Far East will stage 14. No wonder the European Tour just might be about to change its name.

If it does, then The World Tour would work because there is no doubt that the bosses of the Euro circuit have a game plan and this game plan means that they covet everything outside USA and Canada. US Tour commissioner Tim Finchem can have The Bronx and Manhattan, European boss George O'Grady has his eye on just about everything else. That, if you like, is his job.

The decline in the number of pro events here, however, is a cause for regret. When I first started out on what I laughingly refer to as 'my golf-writing career' the European Tour was just that, European, and the heart, the core, of the whole thing was British. Back in 1978 the Tour staff was so slight that they could huddle together on a single golf buggy for a photograph. I know this because I've got the picture. Now they need their own telephone directory.

Back then the pro season started the week after the US Masters - mid-April - and reached a sort of climax at the beginning of October after which the majority of touring professionals went back to golf clubs where they worked in the pro shop handing out tees. It was a short, rather frantic season but it had a curious cohesion that, with hindsight, was rather pleasing.

Now, however, the sprint has turned into a marathon and a decent touring pro may play every week of the year in a big-money tournament if he wants although by the end of it he would be even more barking than most of these guys end up anyway. The compensation for all this travel, of course, is that there are millions and millions and millions on offer.

These millions are about to increase dramatically. The downside is that the accepted formula embraced by most pros whereby they enjoy some success, buy a house somewhere in Surrey and commute to work via Heathrow, is about to seem as smart as buying a croft in the Hebrides. Very soon there will be an exodus of these chaps and their families to places like Dubai because places like Dubai are set to become the centre of the pro golfer's universe outside the States.

The downside to this is that there will be a separation of interest between these players and the public who like to follow their careers. In other words 'local heroes' are about to become as rare as an English Arsenal player who likes occasionally to enjoy a pint of bitter while pro golf will be a game reserved almost exclusively for a television audience. This, of course, is true for all popular games.

It is progress but it is also a pity and the reason it is a pity is that while the world has become a much smaller place it is hard for many of us to identify with, say, a water-feature course in Shanghai. One of the old selling points for pro golf was that afterwards you and I could book a tee time and play in the footsteps of our heroes.

Well we can still do that but we probably will have to fly for several hours first. I used to groan at reporters who blathered on about the good, old days but, sod it, I'm going to say it: I do indeed remember with great affection the good, old days. I'll even try hard to remember them as I'm being carried on to that private jet...