Can you remember the television programme Surprise Surprise?

That Sunday night vehicle for Cilla Black's barrel-scraping gaudiness in which increasingly tearful, trembling folk were suddenly re-united with long lost brothers and sisters? Having hastily thrown the stunned family back together again in front of a ghoulish, gasping studio audience, the shrieking Cilla would swiftly leave them all to deal with the mind-mangling shock and off-camera seizures as she warbled a concluding anthem celebrating the fact that "the unexpected hits you between the eyes". It was a bit like being on the receiving end of one this correspondent's tee-shots.

Perhaps good old Cilla, that flame-haired walking wall of Liverpudlian tooth enamel, could host something similar for the European Tour. After all, it feels like years since we last clapped eyes on our leading lights at a regular event on this side of the Atlantic.

The FedEx Cup gravy train has now pulled into the station and, for the time being, the world's elite can pause for breath amid the relentless process of lining their pockets and filling their wheelbarrows with more goodies than Santa on a ram-raid.

This week, there's a purse of more than £3m on offer at the home of golf as the lucrative, celebrity-infused grin-athon that is the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship takes place at St Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingbarns. Ernie Els, the two-time Open champion, will be there. So too will other major winners like Charl Schwartzel and Louis Oosthuizen.

Given that the pro-am contest is bank-rolled by the South African businessman Johann Rupert, it's not surprising that a strong contingent of his countrymen are headlining the field. What Rupert, and indeed, the officials of the European Tour, will make of the no shows, however, is anyone's guess but it's safe to assume that there will a fair amount of girning and groaning going on in high places. Once again, a major event in the European circuit's own territory is taking place and once again there is a no support from the tour's marquee players.

We're getting used to it, of course. Take the Open Championship out of the equation and you have to go back to the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth in May to find the last time the big six of Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose, Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, Luke Donald and Graeme McDowell played together in an event on the tour that, essentially, made them.

There have been glimpses of a couple of them at the Irish Open and the French Open but it seems you have more chance of seeing Lord Lucan hurtling down Buchanan Street on Halley's Comet than you have of seeing these stars in action in this part of the world.

It has been a long-standing gripe and one that shows no sign of easing. As the lure of the PGA Tour, with its embarrassment of riches and boundless opportunity, grows stronger and stronger, the European Tour continues to fight a losing battle with the players that it once nurtured. Look at the Dunhill Links for instance. Six years ago, McIlroy, who had turned professional a few weeks earlier, earned his tour card in double quick time by finishing third at the Old Course. It was only his second event as a pro and he became the youngest player to earn a place on the European circuit from tournament play. He was off and running but, these days, he's hardly likely to give the Dunhill a second glance when scribbling down his schedule for the year.

Looming on the horizon is the Seve Trophy, the team tussle between Great Britain & Ireland and the Continent of Europe. Again, though, it looks as if the stayaway six won't take up a place and that is a great shame. The charismatic, swashbuckling Ballesteros, after all, was the catalyst around which the European circuit was built and the man who fostered its flourishing. Subsequent generations have since feasted on the fruits.

Earlier in the season, there were genuine fears that the Seve Trophy would wither on the vine and the Spaniard's great compadre, Jose Maria Olazabal, made a plea to his Ryder Cup heroes of 2012 to support the contest. "I would love to see the involvement of the top players for that event, their commitment would help in terms of sponsorship, TV and making it a bigger spectacle," he said at the time.

Its future has been safeguarded with a new sponsorship deal but Olazabal's call to arms appears to have fallen on deaf ears. The boys will be back in town - China, Turkey and Dubai, that is - when the European Tour hosts its end-of-season shindig in late October and into November.

Four events in a Final Series worth more than $30m is not a bad way to end the year and earn some extra dosh for the Christmas presents but tournaments in the European Tour's own backyard continue to be no-go areas for the top brass. Surprise, surprise eh?