I was reading something the other day about big companies in Silicon Valley dishing out lavish sums to senior employees who don’t do much work. “That sounds familiar,” muttered the sports editor as he sat hunched over his bowl of gruel while gazing scornfully at his golf correspondent.

There’s a gent, for instance, who is leaving his post at Facebook but still pops into the office once a month to collect chunks of the $450 million he’s due. Apparently this is an example of “resting and vesting”, a process this scribe regularly performs when I slump back in my chair and strip to my semmit once the Tuesday column has been winkled out.

Having enjoyed the luxury of a week off, it’s back to the auld claes and porridge now. Just like the sports editor . . .

SCOTS RISING TO THE CHALLENGE

As a tough schooling, the European Challenge Tour can be, well, as challenging as a summer course in calculus. The current crop of Scots continue to make a decent fist of it, though.

Calum Hill’s maiden win on the second-tier circuit on Sunday was the third victory by a home player this season. David Law has enjoyed a win and a second place, Liam Johnston has notched a victory, Grant Forrest has posted two runners-up finishes, Ewen Ferguson has racked up five top 10s and Bob MacIntyre was pipped to a title in a play-off.

All of these 20-somethings are inside the leading 30 on the order of merit – Law and Forrest are in the top 10 – and all have a chance of promotion to the European Tour. With the Scots on the main circuit hardly setting the heather on fire this year, an injection of new faces would be warmly welcomed. Keep it up lads.

LADIES TOUR GETS A TOUCH OF X-FACTOR

Some readers may be familiar with swoon-and-shriek generating pop star Niall Horan. Others may still get shivers at a warble by Frankie Valli. In the golfing world, Horan, he of One Direction fame, continues to be increasingly influential.

His own management company recently unveiled a new Irish Open for the struggling Ladies European Tour which is a sizeable lift for a circuit in serious need of events in its home continent.

Horan’s Twitter following comes in at a mammoth 39.3 million. Tiger Woods has a paltry 6.28 million followers in comparison. Horan regularly Tweets about golf, too.

While many of the responses under his offerings feature reverential gushes from dreamy pop fans like “I love you”, “will you marry me?” and “can I have your babies?” – just like the comments on the Herald Sport website under the Tuesday column, then – there are often phrases such as “suddenly I love golf” from enchanted young females.

Whether such comments are backed up by said girl actually picking up a club is another thing but merely getting golf to register on their radar is potentially huge for a game desperate to tap into this market. Horan’s X-factor is a transcending force. The R&A should give him a part-time post.

SPANISH AYES OR A NO FOR GARCIA?

It’s been a season of firsts for Sergio Garcia. Unfortunately, those maiden moments have been as downbeat as a sacked drummer.

He missed the cut in all four majors for the first time in his career and has now failed to qualify for the FedEx Play-offs for the first time since the end-of-season money grab was launched in 2007. His Ryder Cup hopes are hanging by a thread after a dicey 2018.

Some say a man with a terrific foursomes record – nine wins, three halves and just three losses – deserves to be in on pedigree alone. But loyalty to a talisman can backfire. Lee Westwood’s inclusion in 2016, for instance, ended in three defeats out of three.

Garcia has form over Le Golf National, where next month’s match will be staged, but trying to actually find form amid the unforgiving tumult of a Ryder Cup is a daunting task.

With plenty of players in that wild card hunt, European skipper Thomas Bjorn could be tearing his hair out at the quandary building up. At least he doesn’t have much of it to rip out . . .