This time last year, European Tour professionals got themselves into quite a state, wondering about the annual earnings of their executive director Ken Schofield. As it happened, they had only to ask. Which is what a scribe did, to be informed that Schofield earned Stg£213,000 in 1999 and £201,350 in 1998 and that the tour's income over the previous five years was £223 million.

We speculated at the time that Schofield's US counterpart, Tim Finchem, probably earned 10 times as much. Figures in the current issue of Golf Digest indicate that our estimate was significantly low.

With an annual salary and bonus totalling $2.25 million in 1999, 54-year-old Finchem remained the highest paid golf-association executive in the US, according to the most recent tax returns on file. In addition to the salary and bonus, he received another $1.22 million in benefits, as well as long-term compensation valued at $1.63 million, making his total "compensation package" for 1999 worth $5.1 million.

Since succeeding Deane Beman as commissioner of the USPGA Tour in June 1994, Finchem has boosted the organisation's total revenue to $634 million in 2000 from $280.4 million in 1995; official prize money has nearly doubled; player retirement-plan assets have grown 211 per cent, to $229 million; and television revenue has increased 126 per cent, to $197 million. During that same period, the commissioner's pay increased by more than 60 per cent.

And what do the players think? "He might be underpaid," said Scott Hoch. "Look at what he's done." There are those who would suggest that, of itself, keeping Hoch happy is the ultimate imprimatur.