I never take my readership for granted. “That’s because you’ve not got one,” sniffed the sports editor as he pored over my digital page views analytics like a museum curator carefully peering at an ancient shard of miniscule flint.
I countered the big cheese’s utterance by informing him that some folk do, in fact, get it touch to tell me what they think of this column. Some of them even include crude etchings, diagrams and instructions showing me exactly where I can stick it.
Last week, for instance, one online comment under my Tuesday haverings and meanderings succinctly stated that it was, “a rambling article to fill a bit of space.”
Funnily enough, those are the exact words the aforementioned heid of sport uses at the editorial conference when the question, “and what is that Rodger fellow contributing to the paper this week?” gingerly crops up.
This space won’t fill itself, so let’s get cracking. You may have read over the weekend that members of next year’s US Ryder Cup team could get paid to play in the transatlantic tussle at Bethpage Park.
According to reports, the PGA of America is mulling over the possibility of awarding each of the 12 players around $400,000. Professional golfers wanting more money? Surely not.
In the grand scheme of the flabbergasting sums that are swilling about in the men’s game, of course, this potential Ryder Cup payment looks like the kind of paltry assembly of coinage you’d find jangling in Steptoe’s pocket.
One can’t imagine, for instance, the world No 1, Scottie Scheffler, checking his mini statement at a cash machine in Long Island next September and saying, “thank goodness that $400,000 has cleared because the boiler now needs fixed, and we’ve got a leak in the awning.”
But that’s not really the point. The Ryder Cup, one of the last bastions of pure competition, could, on one side of the pond at least, be poised to sacrifice that cherished identity.
Yes, I know we can often get all too misty-eyed, romantic and schmaltzy about the Ryder Cup and its treasured ideal.
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Let’s face it, the biennial bunfight is a mighty cash cow and corporate behemoth these days and one that’s almost so far out of reach for the average punter, it may as well be held on the outer rings of Saturn. A daily ticket for the 2025 contest, for example, is $750. And it’s already a sell-out.
But part of the allure of the Ryder Cup, on the course, was always the willingness of the players to compete without personal compensation. The moment trumped the money, the pride meant much more than payment and the team was more valued than the individual.
The demand for some kind of earner – the American players have received $200,000 to donate to charity down the years – is not new, of course. There was something of a stooshie in Rome last year when it was reported that Patrick Cantlay was at the vanguard of a move to get US players a big slice of the slootery pie.
Back in 1999, meanwhile, the build up to the Ryder Cup at Brookline was given added fever by talk of a player boycott over the pay-to-play issue as some of Uncle Sam’s men threatened to fling a star-spangled spanner into the works.
It never came to fruition, but there were plenty of grumblings of discontent. Tiger Woods, a man who used to be as suited to team golf as the Elephant Man was to a Miss World pageant, once claimed the Ryder Cup was like, “pros on parade” and said: “They take us to a bunch of functions that raise money, yet everybody is compensated except us.”
Amid the rumblings of the 1999 debate, the US captain, Ben Crenshaw, made his opinions abundantly clear.
"When you can't show up and can't play for your country and this is not reward enough, that's when my heart bleeds for the game of golf," he said at the time.
Fast-forward to the present day, and the words of Crenshaw and Palmer from 25 years ago still resonate. Probably even more so now.
This is a money-mad age, after all, where phrases like selfish, misguided and sad – along with greed, entitlement and anything else you can fling in – have been used by those who have grown completely disillusioned by the trajectory the men’s professional game has been on over the past couple of years.
If any of these reported changes do take place, it will certainly add an intriguing edge to an already charged Ryder Cup atmosphere.
The men representing Team Europe will hardly be paupers but if they’re not getting paid, and the US players are, the potential for some delightfully delicious to-ing and fro-ing could be considerable.
And if the USA lose on home soil for the first time since 2012? Well, the notoriously wild New York crowds will probably hound the players out of town and demand they refund their $750 ticket.
They should be able to afford it.
