A few weeks ago Tiger mania gripped Germany. Tiger Woods landed in Heidelberg, talked to the press, smiled for the sponsors, signed autographs for the spectators and won the tournament. For anyone wishing to sponsor a tournament one fundamental is to attract players with crowd appeal. Unless it is one of the four majors, the top players will not be easily lured away from their main tour to compete. Offer them some loot and enough jet fuel to cross the Atlantic with and they might consider the trip worthwhile. SAP, the tournament's part sponsor, is a successful company and they wanted to be associated with an equally successful golf event. They recognised quickly how to go about achieving this end: Get the biggest crowd puller in the game and pay through the nose for him.

Tiger does not go looking for his passport unless it's British Open time or a sponsor offers him a million dollars. So he may claim that he wants to travel more, or that Germany is the only country where he can drive a car as fast as he likes . . . he is forbidden to reveal the real reason, of course. The irony of the tacit consent of the Tour to appearance money is that the Heidelberg event was a great tournament and the sponsors actually got value for money. It was the largest crowd ever recorded at a German golf event. The European Tour needs more events like this, but why does its organisation have to done in such a surreptitious fashion?

The European Tour would like to consider itself comparable to the US Tour. It's not and I doubt if it ever will be - for the precise reason that it takes part in such blatant breaking of its own rules. I wonder why the Order of Merit appears in euros, when every player is paid in sterling. Are the larger Euro totals supposed to fool people into thinking that there is more money in the pot? Or are they a desperate effort to come closer to the enormous figures that appear opposite names on the US rankings?

To be honest and admit that such measures as appearance fees are necessary to bolster the Tour would involve greater integrity than their present denial of any such paid presence. As over 25 of Europe's top pros were entertaining their amateur partners in the pro-am at Heidelberg, the Tour a.g.m. was in progress. The second shotgun on Thursday afternoon was to finish just before 8p.m. The a.g.m. started at 6.30 p.m. Conspiracy theorists could have suspected this was the Tour administrators' way of keeping controversial members out.

I'm sure even they would not go to such lengths. But it was certainly a strange time for a meeting, guaranteeing to omit so many important members. The tour could have argued, in fairness, that most of the members never attended the meetings anyway. But to ensure their exclusion was no remedy.

The main thread of discussion was very much the opposite of million-dollar appearance fees and jet fuel budgets. More fundamentally, it was the covering of the price of an economy air ticket and a hotel room for a week for all players. They talked about a minimum £700 wage for all players at each tournament. This idea was not entertained for long. Not too many socialists involved in this selfish game, where sympathy is given only to those who finish worse off than you do.

The chairman did not believe Daniel Chopra when he informed him that despite finishing in the top 100 on last year's rankings, his £65,000 earnings did not cover his expenses. Anyone travelling and paying their own way on tour recognises quickly that after airlines, hotels, caddies, managers, psychologists, coaches etc, are paid, that there is not much change left over unless you finish in the top 50. I wonder when Ken Schofield, who was sceptical about Chopra's expense claims, last paid for his flexible air ticket?

The Tour produces a glossy newsletter every week, with last week's results and statistics, the updated rankings and information about future deals and events. Normally the front page reports include a large colour photo of the previous week's beaming victor.

The week after Tiger's victory in Heidelberg, the front page carried a small photo of the winner, with a brief summary of his story in small print underneath. The dominant story, with an accompanying photograph, was that Colin Montgomerie would be defending his PGA title later that week.

The main attraction had lifted the trophy, drawn a new audience to golf and elated a new sponsor. The Tour News did not consider Tiger's tale worthy of more than a token corner of the front page.

The German Open was played on a far superior golf course to Heidelberg. But being some hour and a half outside Berlin, in the former East Germany, it was not very accessible. More importantly there were no superstars, no crowd-pullers, playing. The result was about two sheep and a couple of rabbits showed up. It was a non-event.

Next year the German Open's future is in doubt, while the Deutche Bank/SAP Open, which will revert to Hamburg, has never looked healthier. The "appearance money" worked. It's a pity it couldn't do so more candidly.