Though I pay a man who comes and does odd jobs around my house £60 each day, I do not regard the riches of the modern day professional golfer as being unseemly or obscene. Rather the opposite in fact.

The $1.66 million that will go to the winner of the Dubai World Championship in 2009 and the $2m that a golfer will receive for winning what we now know as the Order of Merit but will be renamed The Race To Dubai at the same time undeniably add up to loads of dosh, much moolah and all that. But to win the bounty for TRTD the golfer will have had to compete very successfully on the European Tour for the previous year. And to win the DBC he will have to play very well for 72 holes in November 2009. It might be a lot of money that he is receiving but that is a lot of golf, too.

Consider the daily rate of the England's women soccer players in the recent World Cup for women. How much do you think that was? One hundred pounds? Two hundred pounds? A miserly £40 for women who are amateurs and had taken time off work.

Consider the prize given to the winner of the HSBC World Match Play Championship at Wentworth a couple of months ago. Ernie Els, for it was he, played four matches, 36 holes at a time, and took back to his home by the side of the 16th a cheque for £1m. That is pounds not dollars.

Consider, most of all, the average salary of footballers in the Premiership? It was recently announced that it is now just over £1m, the same as Els got at Wentworth.

Has the world gone mad? How many more nurses could be employed if a fraction of that sum was diverted into the National Health. How many more teachers? How many more doctors?

That argument simply does not wash. Sportsmen are commercial traders, selling their wares for the most money they can get. Their wares might be their skill on a soccer or rugby pitch of their ability to hit long drives and hole putts on a golf course. But the reason they receive all this money is because people are prepared to pay it. It's known as market forces.

Market forces, as well as a good any other things, were present at the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai when the Dubai World Championship and TRTD were announced on Monday. A burly Australian with an accent you could cut with a knife spoke of his pleasure at being able to announce that his company was investing $200m dollars in these two events and a few others and said that though the investment was for five years initially it would probably be extended to ten years. And George O'Grady, executive director of the European Tour, spoke of his pleasure at being able to announce two such whopping events as the DWC and TRTD.

Money makes the world go round doesn't it? Even in a quiet sport such as golf.