If the mythological musings of those auld Greeks teaches us one thing, then it's how much of a flustered fouter everyday life was for some of the key figures involved in those ancient bletherings.

Take King Midas, for instance. Having the ability to turn everything he touched into gold may have been handy when it came to, say, paying bills or performing gold-related odd jobs – you know, buffing up his decorative crown, cementing in a glistening dental prosthesis or doing running repairs on the awning of an ornate temple – but he must have tip-toed around in an anguish-laden lather as he tried to refrain from jabbing, clasping and caressing with those potentially devastating digits.

Many a delightful spread at a finger food buffet, for example, must have been ruined by his absent-minded pinching while a family day out at the local petting zoo would have been nothing short of calamitous as a variety of docile goats, rabbits and sheep became entombed in a rigid gold coating against a backdrop of horrified screaming.

Here in the world of golf, meanwhile, it’s golden opportunity time for those involved in the European Tour’s on-going Final Series as the players compete for the kind of lucrative purses you used to get in Midas’s back pocket.

Last weekend’s Turkish Airlines Open was supposed to be the all-singing, all-dancing start to this tantalising trinity of cash-sodden, no-cut occasions but security concerns in Turkey and the non-appearance of some of the tour’s biggest names made the whole thing look like, well, a run-of-the-mill tour event, albeit one with a prize fund of £5.6 million.

The fact they had to trawl down to Pelle Edberg, the man ranked 102nd on the rankings, to fill a field that was supposed to showcase the top 70 or so did little for the credibility of the Final Series.

Edberg wouldn’t be complaining, of course. And neither would Scotsman, David Drysdale. He too got a late call up and went on to finish on the fringes of the top-10 and earn around £85,000. If that was a bonus, then he was swiftly handed another when Patrick Reed, the US Ryder Cup star, decided not to take up his place in this week’s NedBank Challenge in South Africa. Drysdale will take his place and get to dip his bread in another sloshing gravy boat worth over £5 million.

Nobody could begrudge the 41-year-old his end-of-year bonanza. At a time when many starry-eyed hopefuls are starting out on the rocky road towards the European Tour and can often be blinded by a misplaced sense of entitlement and fanciful fantasies, Drysdale remains an almost perfect example of admirable, level-headed middle ground. The term journeyman may be seen as damning by faint praise but there will be plenty young pretenders who wouldn’t mind being labelled a journeyman if it meant eight unbroken years on the main European circuit and career earnings of over £3.6 million.

Drysdale has, and continues to be, a true fighter and has an entrenched competitive instinct which continues to serve him well. Appreciating and accepting what went before – the regular trips to the qualifying school, the near misses, the great escapes and the anguish of losing his card by about £400 one year – helps to build the character. Drysdale, who has never won on the main tour, is certainly no superstar who is surrounded by drooling aides and prone to excessive, hark-at-me indulgences. Some may have the fancy cars and the private jets but Drysdale is just as content sitting on the lawnmower he once bought to keep the grass on his own driving range outside his Cockburnspath home in trim order.

Everybody wants to be a Rory McIlroy, a Jordan Spieth or a Lydia Ko. Golf throws in these remarkable talents every so often and up-and-coming players use them as the benchmark to success even though such comparisons are grounded in the land of make believe, not cold harsh reality. “What makes a tour player?” said Drysdale a couple of years ago. “I’ve no idea. I wasn’t any good at 16. I was working in the pro shop at Dunbar and working for my old man in the winter. I was playing off two and at that stage I wasn’t going to be a standout. It’s been a hard old grind for me.”

Sporting endeavour and excellence requires the hard miles. Just ask Andy Murray. Drysdale is never going to be a world No 1. He may not have that Midas touch either. Other players had more amateur pedigree and were more robustly championed than Drysdale ever was but in the capricious, cut-throat business of professional golf, he continues to enjoy a fruitful career that countless others have got nowhere near emulating.