Back in ye olden times, before smiling was invented and sombre looking men with faces like rocky outcrops thrashed and swiped away on the links, the Royal & Ancient game of golf was not particularly lucrative. Old Tom Morris’s first sponsorship deal, for instance, was a basket of turnips.

These days, of course, the sport is drenched with the kind of torrents of riches you’d get in the aftermath of a burst pipe at a Sultan’s tenement flat. It’s never going to be enough though.

With bold, fist-shaking vigour, Keith Pelley, the new chief executive of the European Tour, is on a crusade to bring more dosh into the circuit’s coffers. There’s gold in them thar fairways and greens.

Ahead of this week’s lucrative, season-ending DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, the effervescent Pelley made an eye-brow raising admission.

“I’m telling you our flagship event, right here, is the DP World Championship which is $8m plus a bonus prize,” he gushed. “I’m not sure how you couldn’t say this wouldn’t be our flagship event.”

But what about the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth which is the European Tour’s traditional flagship? “It [Wentworth] has a fund of €5m. It’s a terrific event with wonderful fan engagement with 125,000 fans that experience the game of golf, and the way that we actually present it should be applauded. But I don’t see it as our flagship event.”

Crikey. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. Since the European Tour was founded back in 1972, the PGA Championship, which itself goes back to 1955, has been a key part of the circuit and its roll of honour reads like a who’s who of European golf.

BMW has been a partner of the championship since 2005 but those within that particular company must have been coughing and spluttering like a clapped out car of inferior build quality after hearing Pelley’s remarks. BMW has not renewed its sponsorship of the Shanghai Masters and, with Germany in the bidding process for the 2022 Ryder Cup, those at the Bavarian Motor Works may be tempted to pull the plug on their considerable backing of the European scene in general and speed off into the sunset if they don’t get it.

The PGA Championship has suffered of late with no-shows from some of Europe's top stars and heavy criticism of the condition of the Wentworth course. Pelley, who is looking to bolster prize funds and make the European Tour a “viable alternative” to the cash-laden PGA Tour within three to five years, has certainly not helped matters by potentially rubbing a major player up the wrong way.

As they say, keep your friends close, but your sponsors even closer … or something like that.