Proving that monkeys can indeed write a Shakespeare sonnet (or at least a broadly-accurate news story) every once in a while, it appears that the Guardian golf blog got it right this week in suggesting the European Tour is about to announce a cut in the prize money for its end-of-season Race to Dubai event.
Lee Westwood, in Akron for the Bridgestone Invitational, confirmed the news and had some eminently sensible things to say about it:
"It's a reality check for everybody that in times like this -- when there's a credit crunch, people are struggling financially -- nobody is immune.
"I heard before it all came out in the press that it was going from $10 million down to $7.5 million. That's still a massive prize when you think about it. I think we're lucky to be playing for that kind of money."
By the way, that "broadly-accurate" reference earlier in the post is there for a very specific reason, which is that there are whispers going around that rather than cutting back the deal with Dubai from five years to three years, the European Tour will in fact announce that this year's event - due to take place in November - may well be the first and last Dubai World Championship.
As I say, this is only a rumour but, given I've heard it from two different sources, it just about qualifies for inclusion in a blog post. From the perspective of the European Tour, one can only hope it isn't the case. However, if it turns out to be true then there could be serious financial problems ahead for professional golf in Europe.
