IT'S prize fund was slashed from $10m to $7.5m. Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson don't figure on the timesheet. And not one of this year's four Major champions will play.

Yet this week's Dubai World Championship is going to be the biggest, best-attended and probably the most exciting end-of-season showpiece in the history of the European Tour.

Impressively, most of the fireworks will be provided by Europe's own as Rory McIlroy, Lee Westwood, Martin Kaymer, Ross Fisher and Paul Casey go digging for $2.75m on the brand new Earth Course at Jumeirah Golf Estates.

The gleaming ring of confidence which surrounded the European Tour at the launch of the inaugural 'Race to Dubai' 12 months ago has turned into an ever-tightening financial choker.

Yet the Tour probably has never been stronger where it really counts -- on the golf course. The emergence of a host of gifted youngsters like McIlroy and Kaymer suggests the beginning of a new golden era in European golf to rival that of Seve, Faldo and Langer.

Here's an interesting statistic. Twelve events on this season's European Tour schedule were won by players in their 20s and another two by teenagers -- McIlroy was still 19 when he registered his maiden victory as a professional in February's Dubai Desert Classic while Danny Lee, at 18, became Europe's youngest ever winner in the Johnnie Walker Classic a few weeks later.

By comparison, just six players under the age of 30 registered tournament victories on the PGA Tour in the United States this year and one of those was a Scot, Martin Laird.

talent

Okay, Danny Lee was Korea-born and reared in New Zealand while Tano Goya (21), who came up trumps in Madeira, hails from Argentina. Yet the other 12 titles were all won by home-grown players, representing a wealth of natural talent in desperately hard times.

A glance at the threadbare tournament schedule recently announced for the opening four months of the 2010 season shows just how hard the European Tour has been hit by the global financial meltdown.

Two 'new' events, the African Open (January 7-10) and Hassan II Golf Trophy (March 18-21) have been co-opted onto the roster. Yet recent springtime staples like the Johnnie Walker Classic and the Malaysian and Indonesian Opens have vanished.

The early-season schedule is so bare, it does few favours for guys like Paul McGinley as they try to launch a bid for Ryder Cup places from outside of the world top-50.

Due to return from his winter break at Quatar in January, McGinley will have just one outing in February, the Dubai Desert Classic; one in March, the Open de Andalucia and one in April, the Estoril Open de Portugal before the US Masters, making it virtually impossible for him to earn a berth at Augusta.

No such problems for players in the upper echelons of the world game and eligible for the Accenture Match Play in Tucson and the CA Championship at Doral in that period.

Of course, they also can expect invites to regular US Tour events like Honda, Houston and Bay Hill.

Given the paucity of events in Europe at that time and the lure of the FedEx Cup play-offs in early autumn, it came as no surprise when Holywood star McIlroy decided last week to follow the example of Padraig Harrington and accept membership of the PGA Tour in the United States.

This one small step should bring a giant leap in McIlroy's earning potential and, just as importantly, the number of world ranking points he can win.

Yet the youngster insists he'll always regard Europe as his 'home' tour and, like Harrington, includes next year's BMW PGA in Wentworth and the Irish Open at Killarney among several events he has committed to play on this side of the pond.

Just how well equipped the US Tour is to ride out the current economic maelstrom was underlined earlier this month when they unveiled their complete FedEx Cup roster for next year, contentedly describing the 37 regular-season tournaments and four play-off events it includes as 'a full slate'.

Sure, they've lost a tournament or two (the Buick Open and US Bank Championship, for example) and bade a sad farewell to a few sponsors. Yet it's a measure of the enduring strength and profile of golf in the USA that ready replacements were standing by.

For all that, as the domestic sponsorship market contracts in the US, the PGA Tour seems to be looking over the horizon. Tim Finchem's visit to the recent WGC event in Shanghai, for example, was just part of a three-week foray into Asia by the US Tour Commissioner and he didn't go for the sightseeing.

With commendable foresight, the European Tour recognised the vast growth potential of the Middle and Far East in the '90s and established firm relationships in both regions.

Yet they'll face stiff competition in what once was virgin territory if the US Tour is seriously interested if developing sponsors and tournament sites beyond the North American continent; and Finchem has two trump cards in Woods and Mickelson, by far the biggest personalities on the world stage right now.

Without doubt, the most powerful currency in professional sport is not the dollar or the Euro but its star performers. For example, Tiger's emergence in the mid-90s transformed golf globally and he is the rock upon which the current financial might of the PGA Tour is built.

So far, American golf's search for a potential successor for Woods has been frustrated. Many have been trumpeted but none have delivered, Anthony Kim being the most recent example of a long line of young players who promised much and then wilted.

Though the European Tour plays second fiddle to the Americans in monetary terms, when it comes to producing and nurturing young talent, the advantage seems to lie on this side of the Atlantic.

Major titles offer the true measure of greatness in golf. By ending Europe's eight-year barren spell at the British Open at Carnoustie in 2007 and winning two more Majors last year, Harrington rekindled the flame for a generation of young golfers, giving them reason to believe in precisely the same way as Seve did two decades earlier.

The Dubliner expects to win again, while Lee Westwood and Sergio Garcia also appear capable of keeping that torch ablaze until Fisher, Kaymer, McIlroy, Noren or Molinari -- the list goes on and on -- are ready to deliver on the Grand Slam stage.

entice

At the outset, it was hoped that the Race to Dubai and, indeed, this week's Dubai World Championship, might entice leading PGA Tour players to take out European membership -- indeed, some did, including Kim, Camilo Villegas, Ben Curtis and, for a spell, even Boo Weekley.

Yet for several reasons there never was any chance of tempting Woods or Mickelson to join the race.

Tiger really couldn't make any further commitments as he returned from knee surgery.

Anyway, why would he add an extra couple of European Tour events to his schedule and then travel all the way to Dubai in November for the outside chance of winning $2.75m when he can command a $3m fee simply for turning up at tournaments like last weekend's Australian Masters in Melbourne.

That Mickelson played and achieved as much as he did this year is astonishing in view of the trauma the golfer and his family endured as his wife Amy and his mother Mary were diagnosed and then underwent treatment for breast cancer.

Yet one suspects the recession also played its part as Woods and Mickelson responded to a personal appeal from Commissioner Finchem last winter to Tour members (especially marquee players) to lend all the support they could to hard-pressed sponsors and the home cause.

In simple monetary terms the Race to Dubai and this week's World Championship was devalued last summer when the collapse of the property and construction market in the Emirates forced a renegotiation of the terms of the $100m five-year deal with the European Tour.

As a result the $10m purse for this week's tournament and $10m bonus pool to be shared by the top 15 finishers in the Race to Dubai were reduced by 25pc to $7.5m each ($1.25m will be the tournament-winner's take and a $1.5m prize goes to first place in the season-long Order of Merit).

Suddenly the Dubai World Championship was transformed from being the richest tournament in history to joint fifth in 2009, behind The Players ($9.5m) and the three World Golf Championships ($8.5m each) staged in America this year.

concept

Even more concern revolves around the long-term future of the Race to Dubai itself. Without a significant economic recovery, the concept might do well to survive three years, never mind the five originally contracted.

However, the endeavour has been an unqualified success in the pure sporting sense with no fewer than seven of the 60 players in Dubai this week (Westwood, McIlroy, Kaymer, Fisher, Casey, Geoff Ogilvy and Oliver Wilson) mathematically capable of winning the Order of Merit.

As more than 70,000 free tickets have been distributed among internet applicants, a rivetting atmosphere is guaranteed. Few will enjoy it more than McIlroy but several other members of Europe's golden new generation of golfers are capable of making history this week.

Even in hard times, we all can afford great expectations.

- KARL MacGINTY

Irish Independent