Tim Finchem’s job is a fairly easy one these days, which may have been why he took some time off last week to jet down to Augusta and break bread with the keepers of the green jacket.

Finchem runs the PGA Tour, a job that reportedly pays him some $5 million a year. He earns it basically by keeping Tiger Woods happy while making sure some of the mega millions generated by Woods get doled out to other players.

Woods seems content lately, and there are a lot of new millionaires on tour. And although Finchem’s new Fedex Cup may be a contrived exercise in corporate excess, he no longer has to explain what it is and why it is so important.

That’s left the commissioner with a lot of spare time. He’s apparently been using it to ponder the future of golf, and not just how it relates to the John Deere Classic. Finchem was pondering the bigger picture, and who better to ponder with than Augusta National chairman Billy Payne.

Not coincidentally, all that pondering led them to the same conclusion. They want golf in the Olympics.

Not in the Beijing Olympics, though the Chinese probably would have built a replica of Augusta National had golf had been on the schedule. And not in London in 2012, though the idea of an Olympic competition at St. Andrews, the birthplace of golf, is mildly intriguing.

But how about golf in the 2016 Olympics in Chicago or wherever the IOC puts those games. Anyone ever play 18 in Baku, Azerbaijan?

Finchem announced in a blog on the tour’s web site that he was ready to work to get golf reinstated, putting the PGA Tour squarely behind efforts to get golf back in the Olympics for the first time since 1904. Though belated, his support just might be what’s needed to get the IOC to seriously consider golf when it debates next year the addition of new sports.

Here’s hoping that debate will be a short one. The Olympics need golf about as much as golf needs a fifth major.

Woods himself said as much a few years back. You would think Finchem would listen carefully to everything Woods says because the economic health of the tour is dependent on its superstar. On the off chance Finchem wasn’t paying attention, Woods basically said golfers already have plenty of international competition without playing for Olympic medals.

Woods is right, which he usually is when it comes to matters in the sport he dominates. Players from around the world get together at the four major championships on the men’s and women’s tours every year, and there are enough Ryder, Presidents and Solheim cups to satisfy any nationalistic craving.

And then there would be the competition itself. The idea of Woods winning a gold medal for USA isn’t nearly as appealing as the idea of Woods winning the Masters, partly because it lacks any historical significance and partly because golf would be just one of dozens of sports at the Olympics.

A gold medal might look good in the trophy case, but it would not crown the best player in the world. That traditionally takes place in the major championships, something that wouldn’t change if golf were an Olympic sport.

It’s just not a good fit.

Golf and the Olympics parted ways more than a century ago, and both have done just fine.

There’s no good reason to match them up again.