John Huggan- Ryder Cup: Underpaid and over here, but for how much longer?

It's not just that these Ryder Cup matches have been so cruelly disrupted by some predictably awful autumnal Welsh weather. Oh, no.

Sad to say, the much-anticipated biennial contest between the United States and Europe is short of friends in certain high golfing places and has, long-term, a lot more to worry about than meteorological conditions more suited to Noah than golf. For a variety of reasons, its current status is precarious at best.

The Ryder Cup's biggest problem is a lingering and financially motivated antipathy from the PGA Tour on which so many of the participants on both sides ply their dollar-laden trades. The world's biggest, richest and most important circuit derives little or no economic benefit from the matches and so, perhaps understandably, does little or nothing to promote the Ryder Cup. Which is fine; business is business, each to their own and all that. Less laudably, however, the Florida-based conglomerate has more than once appeared to go out of its way to make that same process more difficult than it needs to be.

So it is that, pushed back by the still recent introduction of the incomprehensible but highly lucrative Fed-Ex Cup play-offs, we are here at Celtic Mud… sorry, Manor, in the first week of October rather than the middle of September, a time when better weather is at least more likely. Don't hold your breath on that changing any time soon, too. Four years hence, when the Ryder Cup is due to make what will be only its second-ever visit to Scotland at Gleneagles, the matches will again be pushed into October, a time when - although obviously unlikely - snow is possible so far north.

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All of which makes the smug presence of PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem on Celtic Manor's first tee these past few days all the more hypocritical. There he has been, posing for smiling pictures with all the other so-called dignitaries as if the huge popularity of this unique and highly enjoyable event was somehow down to him and his evil empire. At least the good-humoured crowd has been dishing out some well-merited stick to the preening bureaucrat, asking rhetorically, "Who are you, who are you?"

Then there is the physical and mental condition of the players by the time the Ryder Cup - which is actually controlled and owned jointly by the European Tour and the PGA of America - is allowed to swing round. American Matt Kuchar arrived in Wales the other day having played competitive golf in nine of the last ten weeks, primarily in an effort to land the $10m Fed-Ex jackpot. He is, no doubt, a man running on empty. And he won't be alone in doing so.

The players, of course, are the key to the success or otherwise of any event.And, while the Europeans can be relied upon to maintain their seemingly boundless enthusiasm for the matches - they see a direct benefit to themselves in that money raised this week at Celtic Manor goes a long way towards funding the operations of the European Tour for the next four years - the same cannot be assumed of the Americans. Far from it, actually.

Just over a decade ago, the high-profile foursome of David Duval, Mark O'Meara, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, tired of providing the entertainment free of charge then watching the sizeable proceeds disappear into the black hole known as the PGA of America, asked where the money was actually going. Which seemed fair enough until golf's establishment took umbrage at the implications of such a question. Suddenly, that reasonable request was a demand for payment from point-missing millionaires who should be honoured to represent their country. "Unpatriotic" and "money grabbing" were just two of the many accusations thrown their way.

Eventually, that uprising was made to go away by the introduction of a $100,000 stipend the players donate to a charity of their choice. But an undercurrent of ill will towards both the PGA of America and the Ryder Cup still exists. Woods, of course, is at the head of that queue. Indeed, if this week's typically po-faced attitude is anything to go by, the world No.1's well known and well documented antipathy for team golf, unlike his hairline, shows no sign of receding.

But Woods is not alone. Way back in the 1970s former Open champion Tom Weiskopf made himself unavailable because he was going hunting in Canada. And two years ago, Hunter Mahan likened the demands of Ryder Cup week to "slavery," albeit he quickly retracted when his supposed lack of patriotism became a potentially career-defining issue. Hey, these guys have endorsement contracts to think of.

The format of the Ryder Cup doesn't help either. There is nothing professional golfers with large egos hate more than having to announce: "I lost." That little four-letter word is an anathema to pampered individuals reared on the weird notion that top-ten finishes in 72-hole stroke play events are somehow laudable. "I finished eighth this week." Oh, well done, you must have played some awfully good stuff; only seven people beat you.

Anyway, the impression here is that it would not take much for the leading Americans to start opting out of the Ryder Cup, especially as they are being asked to play - again gratis - in the PGA Tour-created Presidents Cup during odd-numbered years. All we need is one of the top-three - let's go with Woods for the sake of argument - to say, "you know what, I'm tired. It's been a long year and I've had enough of golf. Give my Ryder Cup spot to someone else this time round."

If that were to happen, the floodgates would open, for where Tiger goes, the others would surely follow, led by Mickelson.Soon enough, to the no doubt ill-concealed delight of Finchem, the Ryder Cup would be struggling. And not long after, deprived of the lifeblood that is the Ryder cash, the same will be said of the European Tour itself.