Tournament professionals, in the view of Peter McEvoy, can justify themselves in the commercial world only as entertainers. Other than showing up and playing, they provide no useful function at all according to one of the game's leading amateurs of recent decades and a successful Walker Cup captain.

It is a pretty stark concept, but a fascinating one in view of events surrounding the American Express Championship currently in progress at Valderrama, where the majority of the leading US players are absentees, with the notable exception of Tiger Woods. And another major development has created further pressure for a beleaguered European Tour.

At a time when the spotlight has come on tournament scheduling, which is clearly flawed, a growing disenchantment among Continental players at the "Britishness" of the Tour, is in evidence. And, in a bitter irony, we are led to believe that everything is being done in the interest of the players.

"Look at any walk of life and it is clear that people pay you only if you provide a service, let it be brain surgery, accountancy, whatever," said McEvoy. "There is an artificiality about the way the professional game is structured at the moment and if you look at any business scenario, you will find that such structures don't tend to last.

"Obviously there's lots of money going into the pro scene, but that shouldn't be the only measure of success. The test is whether you can sustain it and whether people maintain interest in what you're doing. As I see it, there are far too many tournaments and where players are spoiled for choice, it is not surprising that they should pick and choose where they perform."

To pick up on McEvoy's point, Colin Montgomerie can often be more entertaining when playing badly than well. In the event, the Scot unwittingly borrowed the name of a popular Louis D'Alton play by claiming "The Money Doesn't Matter" when it comes to professionals deciding where and when they should play.

So, are the players being paid too much to provide the entertainment which McEvoy claims should be their raison d'etre? Nobody did more to popularise European golf than Seve Ballesteros who, in 1980, became the first player from this side of the Atlantic to win the US Masters. He also happened to be one of the four signatories on the letter to the European Tour early this week, demanding more transparency in its financial affairs.

"The money may not matter to Tiger Woods, but it matters to the rest of the players," said Ballesteros. "And I believe it is good for the game. The more money in golf, the more jobs we make and the more jobs we make, the better for the local communities.

"As for Tiger: The top players make the top money in all walks of life. That's natural. And the millions we see in the game now is a natural progression. Look at how much money Sam Snead made in the whole of his career. One of the best players of all time, if not the best. He never reached a million dollars, right? (Actually his career earnings were $620,126).

"Now how many people are making a million dollars in one season. Evolution can be seen in every aspect of sport. Why should it be wrong? I see only positive things about people making money. I wish everybody could become a multi-millionaire, then we would all be happy."

But the Ballesteros bonhomie changed as he added: "We don't see all the top players playing in the top events because what golf needs now is order. And order means having a proper season. At the moment, all the tours are mixed up with players from different countries playing somewhere else. What we need is a world tour.

"Tiger Woods and a lot of other leading players won't be playing in the Andersen Consulting Matchplay simply because it is in Australia at the beginning of the New Year. The fixture is totally wrong. Even myself, if I qualified I wouldn't play."

Regarding the call from Ballesteros to impose order on things, Andrew "Chubby" Chandler, who manages Darren Clarke, Lee Westwood and Paul McGinley, among others, said: "I think the scheduling is pathetic. This is obviously the wrong time of year to be staging the American Express Championship. I believe it should be around the time of the British Open, when the Americans would be in Europe anyway, just as the NEC follows the USPGA Championship."

He went on: "I doubt if Darren and Lee will play in this tournament when it goes to St Louis next September, two weeks before the Ryder Cup." But won't it hurt these players commercially not to compete? "Commercial contracts for players are determined largely by world ranking," he replied. "And it doesn't really matter how or where you accumulate the ranking points."

It seems that the prime targets of the current discontent are the respective directors of the world's tours. Coming into office, the brief for each of them was to generate as much money as possible for their players. Initially, they did this by concentrating strictly on their own territory, until they found they could enhance revenues even further through deals with each other, creating common fixtures. This is how the World Golf Championship events were created.

But have the Americans overstepped the mark? Sergio Gomez, manager of Jose-Maria Olazabal, who will be playing the early-season events in the US next year, believes so. "Tim Finchem (the US Tour commissioner) and his team are trying to create a global USPGA Tour," said Gomez.

"You can see it here at Valderrama. Starting with transportation, everything is run by the USPGA Tour, by Finchem. I was surprised by that last year, but not any more. We even play for dollars in the south of Spain. Finchem is a powerful man and I believe his ultimate goal is to have the other tours as breeding grounds for his own tour. And if I was in his position I would do the same thing."

So what is the solution for the European Tour? The Spaniard replied: "For the past 10 years, I have been saying not only to Jose Maria but to my friends and to the tour officials that we are growing too fast. And when things grow too fast, you have disorder.

"We have to sit down and really start talking about how we should face the future. How can we shorten the season. We are trying to follow the sun, which is crazy. It means travelling all over the world in the early months of the year. I believe the European Tour should not start until after the Masters and I would run it from then until mid-October.

"By reducing the tour to say 20 quality events, we could increase prize funds and close the gap with the Americans." But what of the younger players, straight from the Tour School? What are they to do? "If I were Ken Schofield, I would arrange a second, winter tour in collaboration with the South Africans, Australians and Asians," he replied. "That is where the young players could go during the winter months to prepare for the main European Tour.

"When Jose Maria joined the tour 15 years ago, we had the Safari Tour, which was run by the European Tour. It doesn't really matter how they are structured. Players from your country such as David Feherty and Ronan Rafferty did it. It worked then, it can work now."

In that way, the monster which is the current, fixture list, can be trimmed down to size. Even in the US, there is clear evidence that television audiences are, in fact, falling for events in which Woods is not competing.

McEvoy points to the American Football season which runs from September to January. "That is all the public get, no matter how much they plead for more," he said. "Spread your money over too many tournaments and people lose interest. Keep the public hungry for the game and you guarantee its survival."

Clearly, lessons are being learned. And the main one to emerge from recent events is that television companies may soon be forced to look seriously at their golf contracts. After all, a major entertainment without leading entertainers is a bit of a nonsense.