There has been an ever increasing trend in professional golf tournaments to pay players who the sponsors feel will help to guarantee the success of their event, and who could blame them. Having a good representation of home players in an event is always good for the spectators. The largest galleries will often be found following the home players (once Tiger is not around). We were in Holland recently for the Dutch Open on a week that is not ideal for a sponsor, directly after the British Open, with the big names suffering from Major fatigue the field was not as strong as it would normally be at this time of year. Holland has not had too many golfers of note in the professional world.

Rolf Muntz won the Qatar Open in March breaking decades of Dutch isolation from the winners enclosure and thus putting Holland back on the golfing map. The Dutch Open has grown steadily in the past few years, it would have been a tournament of celebration if their hero had played. Apparently it didn't fit into his extremely busy schedule. Peter Coleman, Bernhard Langer's caddie and senior figure in the caddie shack, was sitting in the locker room on the Friday clutching a big bunch of hats in one hand and a wad of Dutch gilders in the other. Rolf Muntz was not playing but his sponsor Muermans were still interested in being associated with the event.

Anyone who has been around tournament golf can tell by subtle movements of both player and caddie if they have made the half-way cut: the way the door is opened, the greetings, the manner in which the bag is deposited by the locker - when done gracefully and affably success is indicated. These were the signs Coleman was looking out for on the Friday evening in Holland. Rolf had done the caddies a big favour by sitting this one out: his sponsor, through Pete, arranged to adorn the weekend toters with Muermans caps. Some 62 cads, including the victorious Australian one, were sporting the real estate company's name.

Seventeen of the remaining heads were already accounted for by permanent sponsor deals. The following week in Stockholm 41 Swedes started in the Scandinavian Masters in Kungsangen. Nearly all of the Swedish regular European Tour players were present, most of them proud to play in their national tournament in front of a home crowd, some of them lured by the customary incentive to ensure their presence.

Jesper Parnevik did not take a week out of his schedule to play simply for the love of the game. He does still have an affinity with his native land and despite the fact that he was given an incentive to play, he would probably not have played had the tournament been outside his homeland. He has been advised not to play at present due to a hip injury, so one can only surmise that there is a sense of allegiance for Parnevik.

Jesper was there but his compatriot trend setter Jarmo Sandelin was not. No one seems to know why, but there does seem to be some suspicion of no pay no play for Jarmo. Unfortunately for the caddies, Jarmo didn't have such a magnanimous sponsor as Rolf Muntz the previous week. For many golfers playing on their home soil can be an ordeal that would be better avoided. There were a number of caddies I talked to in Stockholm working for natives who said their man was "a nightmare" on the course due to the added aspiration of wanting to impress his supporters.

Golfers can have long memories when it comes to a grudge harboured for maybe over a decade. A rejected request for an invitation to the national Open in the formative years may stick with him through to the successful years. So many of them may feel no allegiance to playing in an event that everyone would expect them to support.

The fact is as long as appearance money exists this problem will exist. Loyalty by some national players to their home Open rightly or wrongly does not exist anymore. If the lure is right they'll play. Watching the stands empty as Jesper Parnevik passed through it would be hard to argue against the value of "pay for play". If Jarmo Sandelin was a few groups behind Parnevik I wonder if the stands would have remained full just a little bit longer in Stockholm last week?