Hazel provides background whisper amid autumn leaves

TV View: The World Matchplay Championship at Wentworth opened with the BBC bombing us with aerial shots of the well-heeled golf club and its sweeping fairways.

Autumn trees, a breathless day. Queasy already?

"One-million pounds up for grabs," offered Scotland's Hazel Irvine in her clipped, Jean Brodie accent. "Might be just enough to put down a deposit on one of the houses around Wentworth."

Probably not enough for a two-bed apartment in The K Club, you thought.

It was a tournament made for television (aren't all golf events?) - the richest of them all, a 36-hole bonanza with 1.43 million for the winner. That's about 10 hours of contest for each winning player each day, which probably raises the game to something approaching aerobic exercise.

But as with such knockout events, the field becomes smaller as the week progresses. Players eliminated leave on their private jets, large sacks of money from the 3.49 million prize fund as consolation.

It was down to four for Saturday's semi-finals and two for yesterday's final between Ernie Els and Angel Cabrera, another South Africa v Argentina battle. That left Ms Irvine with quite a lot of work to do, golf being a game of small bursts of action and long bouts of walking.

So it was that she and Sam Torrance engaged in a talking stroll around Wentworth, Torrance pouring out as much as he could reasonably think of to fill in dead air time and, no doubt, enrich us with his gems of wisdom as Els, Henrik Stenson, Cabrera and Hunter Mahan walked between golf shots.

"A pro-am, 36 holes, 36 holes and 18 this morning. They might not know it but tiredness could be a factor," said Torrance on Saturday at lunchtime.

"Today they are playing for £280,000 (€402,000). That's what winning the match is worth, but they don't think about the money. They just want to win the tournament."

That the previously unknown Mahan has earned around 1.5 million this year suggests Torrance is correct. Then you wonder, if the money is not that important why is it so crucial to have it falling into their pockets like confetti.

Soon we were offered profiles of Els and Stenson: Blue Peter style, the interviews prepared earlier were pulled from under the counter as Cabrera took off to find his ball some 350 yards down the course, in the middle of the fairway as ever.

"That's longer than where I go on my holidays," quipped Ken Brown as the hulking Argentinian, the one golfer whom everybody seems to hold in deep affection, smashed his ball another ridiculous distance across the Surrey landscape on his way to a birdie, par, eagle start to the afternoon's work.

But golfers, bless their bulging wallets, are nothing if not corporately well endowed. What other sport would have players giving live interviews just before they step onto the field of play?

Croke Park? Hey, Robbie, a couple of words before you kick off against Germany?

"Well Ernie, you have six minutes before you tee off. How did this morning go?" was Irvine's opener to local man Els.

The Big Easy just opened his mouth - "Great fans, fantastic competition, wonderful course" - it poured out effortlessly.

The main sponsors, HSBC, must have been swooning.

Liam Brady has an altogether more abrasive style. The former Arsenal star can be agreeably disagreeable and in the company of two other curmudgeons, Eamon Dunphy and John Giles, he is the personification of the independent thinker - though it becomes increasingly difficult to look at him and not see him bent over a Subbuteo player on his sitting-room floor clasping his head as in the advertising campaign running of late.

"Staunton is in trouble. We'll see how the team is going to react," he said, matter of factly, before the match. "Germany are coming here to make a statement."

The question was would the Ireland team perform like Subbuteo figures or stand up for their beleaguered coach.

As it was, Ireland indeed stood up. Well, in a football sense they got up on their hind legs and became bipedal, which in evolutionary terms is the correct direction to be moving.

They put some distance between themselves and the calamitous depths they have plumbed heretofore.

It's hard to say who is now under more pressure - Staunton or Eddie O'Sullivan - and the hawks, of which there are many, must be eagerly looking forward to the next outings for the Ireland soccer as well as rugby teams.

For Staunton that will be against Cyprus on Wednesday. How he would now love to be cracking a ball up the manicured fairways at Wentworth.