At Ryder Cup, follow the money

— -- GLENEAGLES, Scotland -- A return to the home of golf, a place where the game so many centuries ago first evolved, took longer than should rightfully be expected. For only the second time in its storied history, the Ryder Cup this week is being played in Scotland.

Some of the great links courses dot the Scottish landscape: Royal Troon, Muirfield -- which held the country's only other Ryder Cup in 1973 -- and of course the spiritual birthplace, St. Andrews and its Old Course.

All are located within a few hours' drive of Gleneagles, about halfway between Glasgow and Edinburgh, a resort that is home to three golf courses, one called the Centenary that will host the 40th Ryder Cup matches.

But unlike the grand old layouts for which Scotland is known, the Gleneagles venue is an American-style course with lush, perfectly manicured fairways. Instead of pot bunkers and scorched earth, it is a place you might find any given week on the PGA Tour.

Designed by Jack Nicklaus in 1993 and given a makeover by the Golden Bear in anticipation of the Ryder Cup, it serves as an annual stop on the European Tour.

And yet, with all the surrounding traditional and historic Scottish golf courses, they come here?

As Scotland on Sunday columnist John Huggan is proud of saying, the course is the fourth best in the Auchterarder area. (Da-dum. It is a town of four golf courses.)

The reason is as simple as a few symbols on the keypad: $ £ €.

No matter the currency -- dollar, pound, euro -- the Ryder Cup is big business. Enormous might better describe it. And the European Tour makes no secret of the fact that the biennial event -- played in Europe every four years -- is the financial bedrock upon which the circuit rests.

"It would be fair to say that the Ryder Cup is one of the financial locomotives of the tour," said Richard Hills, Ryder Cup director for the European Tour. "It's central to our television negotiations. The players very much know what that they are playing or working for their own company, if you like."

Nobody at the European Tour would get specific about just how much the event fills its coffers, but it is safe to say a small fortune is necessary to secure a Ryder Cup in these times and the European Tour in turn uses the money to help fund its tournaments.

According to Hills, the European Tour controls 60 percent of the event, with the PGA of Great Britain and the PGA of Europe each holding 20 percent.

The European Tour, like the PGA Tour, stages a yearlong slate of events, but unlike its counterpart in the United States, does not attract nearly the sponsorship money.

The PGA Tour has a three-pronged system in which a title sponsor pays a significant part of the purse as well as television production costs. The PGA Tour then makes up the rest of the purse through its television rights deals. In some cases, the tour will subsidize an event that is having sponsorship woes, but it is rare.

The European Tour does not have it as good. The events have purses that are typically less than half those on the PGA Tour. Sponsors don't pay nearly the same amount. And to keep some events afloat, the tour must subsidize the purse to a large extent. And that is where the Ryder Cup money comes into play.

In simple terms, the European Tour loses money in non-Ryder Cup years, makes a tidy profit in years the event is played in the United States (where the PGA of America, not the PGA Tour, owns the event and reaps the majority of the income), and then hits the lottery in years the tournament is staged in Europe.

Earlier this year, Golfweek reported that the European Tour made more than 14 million pounds in pre-tax profit in 2010, the last time the Ryder Cup was staged in Europe. A year later, when there was no Ryder Cup, it lost more than 2.2 million pounds.