Check the Instagram stories or Twitter feeds of the 11 Aussies and Kiwis teeing up at the spectacular Crans-sur-Sierre Golf Club for the Omega European Masters in Switzerland this week and the image of ‘life on tour’ could not be more opulent.

Personalised hire cars, banquets of exquisite European food and day trips up the Swiss Alps. Not to mention practice rounds at one of the world’s most scenic courses.

But ask any of our professionals plying their trade across the globe and they will be quick to tell you that such weeks are the exception and by no means the norm.

This week alone there will be Aussie pros playing in Switzerland, Bulgaria, England, Japan, China, Canada and the United States. Next week they will be in Korea, Holland, Scotland, Kazakhstan and Brazil and with every new country comes a travel disaster just waiting to happen.

Already this year Lucas Herbert has had his golf clubs disappear while Matthew Griffin’s emerged from the baggage carousel in Japan in a state of disrepair, their stories just one of many that play out over the course of the year.

Fighting to stay inside the top 15 on the European Challenge Tour in order to earn full status in Europe next year, Dimitrios Papadatos had a less than ideal preparation ahead of the Prague Golf Challenge in July.

With momentum on his side following a top-five finish the week prior at the Made in Denmark Challenge, Papadatos spent 12 long hours in the Copenhagen Airport as others began their week in Prague.

“Instead of getting in at lunchtime we arrived at 1 in the morning, so that was a bit of a nightmare,” said Papadatos, who this week is playing in the Bridgestone Challenge at the Luton Hoo Hotel, Golf and Spa resort north of London.

“One of my mates who I travel with, Tano Goya, we got a bit unlucky and drew the short straw. They over-book flights over here to allow for cancellations so while a few of the boys were in Prague having lunch we were still stuck at the airport drinking Diet Coke.

“It’s a lot different to what everyone thinks,” Papadatos added about life on tour.

“They think it’s some kind of Contiki Tour but I haven’t had a night out in two months, which is probably a good thing.

“Every time you finish an event you’ve got a travel day Monday and then you’re back on the range Tuesday, pro-am Wednesday, four rounds of the tournament and by Sunday you’re cooked and getting ready to go to the next event.”

In his fourth year playing in China and currently 16th on the PGA Tour-China Order of Merit, Max McCardle knows better than most the difficulties in navigating around the world’s most populous country.

“It can definitely be quite difficult flying around China. The air traffic’s very busy and it can be hard to plan your connecting flights,” said the South Australian.

“Last year we were up playing right at the top of north-east China bordering North Korea in a place called Changbaishan.

“I had a flight scheduled to leave at 8am on the Monday morning to go to Tianjin and then through to Beijing, Hong Kong and then to Adelaide, which should have got me home around Tuesday morning.

“At 10pm Sunday night I was advised that my flight had been cancelled so I had to try and organise a bus to go the 800 kilometres to Tianjin to try and get on my flight at 2.30pm that afternoon.

“It was an eight-hour bus ride, there were flight delays, flight cancellations all afternoon, there were five or six Aussie guys who didn’t get out of Tianjin. I was lucky that I was on a China Southern flight and they flew out on time.

“I got to Beijing with about five minutes to spare before my flight to Adelaide and then once we got on the plane we sat on the tarmac for two hours. That meant that I missed my connecting flight from Hong Kong to Adelaide and there wasn’t another flight to Adelaide until Tuesday morning.

“I got on a flight at 10am which got into Sydney at 7pm and there were no more flights to Adelaide that night so I spent Tuesday night in Sydney and then flew out to Adelaide the next morning.

“The original transit time was around 23 hours and it ended up being around 50 hours before I got home.

“That’s the worst one I’ve had but there are always flight cancellations, that’s probably the hardest part when it comes to traveling in China.”

Winner of the 2016 UBS Hong Kong Open, Sam Brazel has spent the past five years traveling between Europe and Asia and encountered the most anxious 40 minutes of his life after missing the cut at the 2015 Hero Indian Open.

Fellow Aussie Scott Hend also missed the cut so the pair set about changing their flights but at one point wondered whether they would ever be allowed to leave India.

“We rang Thai Airways and were told we had to go to the airport to change our flights but because we didn’t have a flight itinerary we weren’t allowed into the airport,” said Brazel, who will play the opening two rounds of the European Masters alongside Jason Norris and Paraguay’s Fabrizio Zanotti.

“We found a phone that connected through to the Thai Airways desk and they sent a man to the front door to meet us and he told us to give him our passports.

“He went inside and we’re standing outside thinking, ‘Now we’re really buggered.’ We were in India without our passports thinking we were in big trouble.

“We were standing outside the airport for probably 40 minutes without our passports; I’ve never been so nervous. Six or seven minutes in I thought we weren’t going to see our passports again.

“But he came back, we got on the flight and everything worked out.”

And while international cuisine can be exotic and exciting, sometimes it can go wrong. When that happens, Brazel has a simple remedy to keep his constitution intact.

“I got told travelling early days in Papua New Guinea that if your stomach starts feeling a bit upset, find the coldest can of Coke you can and drink it down real quick,” he revealed.

“It’s always helped me out. Always.”