Courtesy: Jumeirah Golf Estates

The European Tour honchos, always looking to keep up with the Jones's, have decided to create their own version of the FedEx Cup. Like the PGA, the European PGA Tour wants to build excitement at the end of the season.

So earlier this week, they announced the creation of the richest golf tournament in the world and, of course, it will be in Dubai, an emirate awash in money and with plans to become the single greatest concentration of wealth on the planet.

More than 10 million dollars will be doled out in the season-ending Dubai World Championship (yet another "world championship") played at the Jumeirah Golf Estates. The winner's share is 1.6 million of that. The European Tour is also renaming its Order of Merit. It will be known in 2009 as the Race to Dubai. The winner of the money title gets another 2 million dollars.

In an eerie echo of PGA commissioner Tim Finchem, European Tour chief executive, George O'Grady said, "It [the Dubai World Championship] will bring a new dimension to the Tour. It will create great drama and theatre throughout the year as all the best players in the world are given the opportunity to compete in the world's richest tournament".

The European Tour will also relocate its headquarters from Wentworth in Surrey, England to Dubai as well, in order to have "an international base in a strategically placed location", said O'Grady.

There seems to be a rush to this emirate which is exploding with the construction of mega-projects. Dubai's income does not come from oil or natural gas. It comes from a kind of economic free-trade zone owned by the largest holding company in the world.

That holding company, in turn, is run by a man closely connected to Dubai's royal family, the al Maktoums, who have ruled Dubai since the 19th century.

In other words, Dubai is the new world center of raw capitalism - with the vast percentage of the wealth in the hands of the country's ruling powers. It is a place for the rich to park their riches. It makes Las Vegas look like a county fair.

With this announcement from the European Tour, one thing has become crystal clear. Money, and very little else, is now the driving force in the game of golf.

Tour bodies believe that by throwing huge amounts of money at a handful of already wealthy individuals - the players - they will play more often, play better and play a more exciting brand of golf that has simply been waiting for the real money to come out of the woodwork.

What twisted logic. It leaves a very nasty taste in my mouth.

I would love to see a World Cup of Amateur Golf whose global participants play for the love of the game and the head to head competition. It would be a return to what is great about golf - how it tests every person who plays it, forcing them to strive for victory, teaching them to accept defeat and work harder for success. And when the game delivers that success, it is its own reward.

Call me an idealist. But that's my story and I'm sticking to it.