A month earlier, the uber management agency, IMG, had sent out a list to tournament sponsors in America offering the services of their leading players for corporate days. The going rate started at $100,000 and rose to over $200,000 for marquee players. Els's name was included, but no one at IMG had consulted him, no one had told him anything about the list, and he was angry.

The fact that he only had a one-year contract with IMG was probably an indication of the uneasy relationship between player and company, and now he wanted out of the arrangement. Els had other options, but he turned to Andrew 'Chubby' Chandler.

Back in 1989 when Chandler cadged a £10,000 overdraft and rented a small room in Mere golf club near Manchester from where he ran his fledgling management firm, he couldn't have envisaged that one day he would watch as Els, one of the world's great players with three major titles to his name, signed on the dotted line.

International Sport Management's (ISM) journey from obscurity to prosperity, hasn't just made Chandler a wealthy man, it has made him one of the most influential figures in European golf. He has nurtured the careers of Darren Clarke, Lee Westwood, Paul McGinley, David Howell and Graeme McDowell, branched out into cricket with Andrew Flintoff and Michael Vaughan, and then Els came on board.

"You could call it giving us more muscle, but I'd prefer credibility, " he says. "Ernie didn't embrace IMG and I don't think they embraced him. Our style of management suits him, it's a perfect fit at the moment."

Whereas players like Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh and Padraig Harrington have benefited from the monolith that is IMG, Chandler has always gone about his business in a more intimate way.

He is invariably available, he knows everyone in the media, and even with his blue-chip roster, he is always hustling to get his players into the headlines for the right reasons. He was, and still very much is, ISM.

If a punt on Clarke, who he persuaded to turn professional before the 1991 Walker Cup, kickstarted everything, the recent addition of Els to his stable has been the affirmation.

"I'd like to think we've been able to change the way Ernie handles his affairs off the course.

It's important to make your players understand why they do things. For example, he spent three hours last Saturday with the BBC at Wentworth doing a piece about the course changes he has brought in, and in the end, it turned out to be a five to 10 minute free advert for his course design business. He probably would've turned that sort of thing down in the past."

While Chandler's main motivation is the welfare of his players . . . the better they do financially, the more ISM earns . . . he is now positioned to analyse golf 's bigger picture in advance of next season's changes in the PGA Tour's schedule. As America and the tour's commissioner, Tim Finchem, prepare to move tournaments to new dates, and to introduce a new championship series of events in August of next year, culminating in a lucrative final in September, Europe is watching with some trepidation.

Already, the tournament that Chandler and ISM run, the British Masters at the Belfry, has been switched from its May date to next September 12 months because of a clash with the Players Championship which has been brought forward from March to May.

"The revamped schedule in the US will make it very tough next year, but I don't think it's going to irreparably damage the European Tour. We only have about 10 prime events anyway, and the others are a bit makeshift, and of those 10 events, six to eight will be unaffected.

Wentworth will have largely the same field next year, and tournaments like the European Open and the Scottish Open will still be strong "Anyway, I don't think the championship series is going to be as massive as Finchem thinks.

Our players will certainly play it next year to see it how it goes, but they're going to be asked to be in America for six weeks out of seven, and I'm not sure they want to do that. Equally, I'm not sure Tiger would want to do that either. I presume he's committed for next season, but I wouldn't be sure beyond that."

Apart from the challenges created by America's modified schedule, he is adamant that the European Tour needs to examine its conscience about how tournament golf is presented.

"We deliver a series of 72-hole events which start on a Thursday and end on a Sunday, and surely that can't be right all the time. We need to make it different, we need to be more creative.

"I mean, why can't some tournaments be run during the week? At the British Masters, we sold 90 corporate packages for three of the four days, but we sold 270 on the Friday. So why not finish a tournament on a Friday, or why not finish it on a Saturday? There's intense competition with other sports at the weekend, people seem to have other interests, so we could think about finishing on a Saturday, and letting everyone do what they want to do on a Sunday."

Chandler also believes that appearance money, currently banned on the European Tour, could return. He wonders if the Irish Open would have been better if the prize fund had been less, and if there had been 1m on offer as appearance money.

"In the great days of the Irish Open, players didn't come for nothing. We're involved in the Singapore Open, and the government came in with the necessary money to underwrite the tournament and to pay certain players to play, and then when the event was a success, a sponsor came in. So, the prize money doesn't necessarily have to plummet just because appearance money is being paid. Obviously, I don't have a problem with it either because ISM makes commission on whatever is paid to the players."

But as an unashamed capitalist and marketeer, he is still uneasy about sponsors dishing out invitations to women players.

"That's just a personal thing, but I can see why it could work for Michelle Wie at the European Masters. I don't believe that another player is losing out because she is playing. Would you rather have a player like her who creates worldwide media interest, and increases the profile of the tournament, or would you rather have Joe Bloggs because his dad is the local estate agent? We're not talking pure golf here, we're talking commercialism."

One or two critics have suggested that he encourages his players to chase money instead of preparing rigorously to win titles, and it remains a moot point that with the exception of Els, ISM is without a major title.

"Winning a major is certainly a goal for our leading players, but then there are other Europeans such as Montgomerie and Bjorn who haven't managed it either. Apart from the occasional surprise and fluke victory, we're in an era with Tiger and Mickelson when it's difficult to win a major. Someone like Darren, who finds it really difficult to win any golf tournament, is as likely now to win a major as he is to win any event. I used to think the British Open was by far his best chance, but I wouldn't rule him out of any major now."

With a blend of north of England savvy, a well of experience from a career as a journeyman professional, and a refreshingly personal touch, 53-year-old Chandler has seen his company get bigger and stronger. With his coterie of players, he has a strong hand when it comes to dealing with promoters and sponsors, and by next year, that hand might have another potentially valuable card.

"Rory McIlroy? We've known him since he was 12, and we're in with a shout of joining up with him. We've got five guys who turned pro with us and who've played Ryder Cup, and he knows that, so I think we've got a lot to offer Rory. A lot can change for him from the time he turns 18 up to the age of, say, 23. It can be very hard to maintain your focus.

I mean, Nick Dougherty, who's going to be a fantastic player, had it, lost it, and now he has it again. It's not certain Rory will come with us next year, but we're well placed."

As European golf steels itself for a new challenge, so too are Chandler and ISM.