We all know that golf is good for body and mind… even though some of us crude amateurs tend to possess swings that require a regular course of antibiotics and have a crushing inability with the putter which leaves us marking our ball with a strait-jacket just as a pre-emptive measure.

Despite all this fevered swiping, clouting and walloping, which often resembles a startled farmhand thrashing at a scurrying rat with a push hoe, this Royal & Ancient game is awash with myriad benefits so it was hardly a surprise to read over the weekend that GPs are being urged to prescribe golf to their patients as a tonic for fitness, muscle strength and happiness.

Funnily enough, this scribe was once given a line from a doctor… and I still raced the putt 12-feet past on the low side. Now there’s a cornball observation that’s so old, they were using it when folk in the medical profession were still lancing boils on horseback.

Talking of plooks on the complexion of things, this week’s sojourn by the European Tour bandwagon to Saudi Arabia is being viewed as a stain on the circuit’s reputation; a money over morals expedition into uncharted territory which merely underlines the notion that the tour will go anywhere as long as there’s a big pot of gold at the other end.

With its grisly record on human rights, and the heightened scrutiny generated by the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the venture to the Kingdom is the European Tour’s most controversial expansion yet.

It’s not put off the likes of Justin Rose, the world No.1, or Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed and Bryson DeChambeau, all of whom are being handsomely rewarded in appearance fees. Those kind of sums always help when it comes to adding events to the diary.

On the other side of the shiny coin, Paul Casey is one player who opted not to travel on the grounds of “human rights violations” even though he did concede that he had played in other nations with questionable backgrounds.

Of course, in situations like this it’s very easy to assume the high ground. The Golf Channel’s analyst Brandel Chamblee hissed that, “by participating they (the players) are a ventriloquist of this abhorrent, reprehensible regime.”

Yet, at a time when many global corporations, businesses and governments continue to forge relations and do lucrative, you-scratch-my-back deals with Saudi Arabia, why should a few independent contractors whose chief concerns revolve around getting a decent yardage for that tricky approach into the 12th suddenly be thrust into the role of moral arbiters?

As in most cases, it comes down to money. Those golfers attending are there to do their job for four days, whether it’s world No.1 Rose, who is simply reaping the abundant rewards that come with excelling in a hellishly difficult pursuit, or a lower ranked campaigner trying to make a living and striving to establish a foothold at the top table. Who are we to deny them the fruits of their labours?

The European Tour continues to fight an uneven, effectively unwinnable, battle with the all-powerful PGA Tour. The focus for its chief executive, Keith Pelley, is providing playing opportunities – and money-making opportunities at that – for its members and the Middle East remains fertile ground.

Some will say that there must be plenty of places the tour could have stopped off in other than Saudi Arabia but perhaps not. For instance, the British Masters, an event with a grand history and a cherished roll of honour, found itself without a sponsor for 2019 and was in danger of withering on the vine.

Tommy Fleetwood stepped forward and will host the tournament in his home town of Southport in May. It was an admirable gesture but one which says little for the circuit’s broader appeal and underlined again the lack of financial backing in the tour’s traditional heartlands.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, is planning a considerable investment in golf. For an under-the-cosh European Tour, the opportunity to dip its bread in the sloshing gravy boat is a hard thing to turn down.

And when it comes to business, any issues of conscience tend to be sacrificed on the altar of commercial realities.