KEY POINTS:
Size really does matter for sports events like the New Zealand Open, our venerable national championship now in its 100th year.
Nothing is more important to the players than the size of the purse.
So when $1.5 million is dangled before them as an incentive to front up
- with a winner's share of $270,000 - is it any wonder there is a deafening silence?
But there should be no gnashing of teeth about the relatively weak field lined up to compete on jewellery magnate Michael Hill's private course near Queenstown starting next Thursday.
By New Zealand standards the financial enticement is considerable but on an international scale it is a mere drop in a very large ocean.
This country's premier tournament doubled its prize money in 2005 when New Zealand Golf entered a five-year deal for the Open to be co-sanctioned by the European and Australasian tours.
At Europe's suggestion the tournament was then switched from the start of the calendar to the end.
We were told both moves would inevitably lead to deeper quality fields but thereality has proved otherwise as bloated purses elsewhere have sucked up the players' attention.
Ninety-nine players earned more than US$1 million ($1.33 million) this year on the PGA Tour in the United States, and 26 topped €1 million ($1.97 million) in Europe.
Many of those players did not win anything except a lot of money, among them our own Michael Campbell, who endured his leanest season in Europe for close to a decade.
Campbell's difficulties were reflected in his world ranking tumbling from 22nd to 152nd, but the 2005 US Open champion still brought home more than $1 million for finishing a lowly 55th on the tour's order of merit.
Some may consider the money now swamping the game is bordering on the obscene, but it is hardly a surprise that golf finds itself so flush when the suits in the offices of conglomerates such as TaylorMade, Callaway, Nike and Ping call the shots.
The club and equipment manufacturers have taken over, their products deeming many courses obsolete, to the absolute horror of such luminaries as Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer.
They, and many others, have decried the technological advances that have been allowed to take place unchecked by golf authorities.
The money men, too, have now taken charge, the US$10 million FedEx Cup series in the US this year drawing a response across the Atlantic this week with the announcement of a US$10 million European season-ending tournament in Dubai from 2009.
The European Tour also announced that its new international headquarters will be established at Jumeirah Golf Estates in Dubai. How entirely appropriate - a cash-rich Middle Eastern base for a European entity.
Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, the New Zealand Open's place at golf's banquet table is to sit alongside such tournaments as the insignificant Madeira Island Open in March, when the field competes for €700,000.
The Dubai tournament, to be staged in late November, will inevitably prompt more discussion about moving the dates of the New Zealand Open, but that's already been done without any gains made.
The New Zealand Open has a proud tradition. Among its many champions was legendary Australian Peter Thomson, who won it on nine occasions while also finding time to win five British Opens.
But the days of top players fronting here are long gone. The Tiger Woods experiment of 2002 was a one-off, bankrolled by the private sector who paid the world No 1 US$2 million to play at Paraparaumu Beach and subsequently had to cover their backs when heavy losses were incurred.
The simple solution for those wanting a player with instant name recognition to front in New Zealand is to pay appearance fees. But NZ Open officials have long pitched their tent against the prevailing breeze by refusing to consider paying such fees.
Their reasoning is understandable.
They cannot afford to get into bidding wars - although it must be said a financial arrangement they've agreed to for one New Zealand player next week bends that rule close to breaking point.
But that is a side issue.
The combined curse of distance and economies of scale mean our officials have an impossibly large wall to climb to convince Europeans to make the long journey here after a season which now takes in all 52 weeks of the year.
The proof is in the pudding. Aside from a number of leading Australians, the field in Queenstown will not differ to any great degree from that at this week's co-sanctioned Australian Masters in Melbourne.
The issue does call into question the benefits to be had from the co-sanctioning arrangement with Europe though. If their players don't front in sufficient numbers why bother continuing the relationship?
The answer will rest with the Australasian Tour, where discussions have already started behind closed doors about a future alignment with the Asian Tour.
Growing numbers of Australian and New Zealand players now ply their trade there and Asia makes for a snug fit geographically.
There seems to be an element of cultural cringe in the reaction to the questionable quality of the field which will assemble at Queenstown.
There's no need for such feelings although there is one man sympathy should be reserved for.
Michael Hill has thrown open the gates to his magnificent course, paid good money for the naming rights sponsorship and even fronted the Open's advertising campaign.
And, for what? A big shrug of indifference from many players.
It's their loss.
- NZPA
