Is This The Start Of The End For The USA

There are only nine American golfers in the World top thirty five players.
Europe is the new kid on the block and will the Asian men follow the success of the women.
Who do you think will dominate world golf over the next 20 years?

The US seem to have a lack of emerging talent, but it is probably just a lean spell. I see no reason why the asian successes on the LPGA tour are not followed up by similar mens successes in the next 10 years or so. It truly is a global game now and I suspect that we will see individuals from all over dominate rather than particular countries or continents.

i think it's great that almost every week, the top of the owgr changes and any one of up to 4 or 5 players could take the lead.

luke donald may not seem to be winning (how quickly we forget he won the accenture at the start of the year) but he's consistently putting himself into contention and must move up to number 1 soon. and rightly deserved - he's been top 10 for his last 7 events including that win, a second and 2 tied fourths equating a whopping 179.52 ranking points in total.

It would only take the likes of Bubba, watney, Fowler and Johnson to have a run in the majors for the top ten to be more US dominated than currently. Bubba, Watney and Dustin Johnson seem more likely to win a major than westwood or Donald in my opinion. Do not be surprised if two of that group win the US open and pga.

As for further down the top 50 I am sure the US will have more players come through at some point. There are just too many people participating in golf in the US for it to ever stop being a major player.

I don't think this argument can be so easily simplified as saying Europes now producing better than US. I think you need to look at the tours rather than just the players themselves no matter what nationality I'd be willing to bet more top 50 players are US based than european based. Likewise most golfers on US Tour come through the college system this include the non US nationals that are playing their tour e.g Donald, Vegas and many others.

I'd be willing to bet too that there is a new influx of US players to come through in the next 5-7 years the reason were not seeing them yet is because their simply still at college

I think I should also have given the South Africans an honourable mention in my OP.

19 USA in the top 50
16 Europeans.

It's funny, I'd have said exactly the opposite.

Every week on the US tour seems to bring some new guy that I haven't heard of before. It seems like there's a real changing of the guard there.

I agree with both Maverick & George1507.
The US collegiate system will continue to produce quality golfers who have been well coached and are battle hardened.
The fact that currently the world's top golfers (OWGR) are Europeans is IMO an accident of timing. The European Tour will, more often than not, produce one, maybe two, exceptional golfers; the PGA Tour produces many.

Can the PGA Tour afford to have non-Americans doing really well in their main Tournaments?
The rest of the world, in the past, has not had a group of players consistently doing well and we have got used to watching golf in order to see good to great play whereas the American viewers are focussed on seeing Americans winning and tend to go and watch some other sport when they are not. TV companies and sponsors don't like it as it leads to less revenue and reductions in what sponsors are prepared to pay. Golf in many areas of America is not doing well because of the economic downturn and events are having difficulty getting sponsors and without American winners it will get worse. The LPGA is already suffering from this.
With Golf being in the 2016 Olympics there will be quite a few countries who have never been interested in supporting Golf may now decide to do so and in 20 years time there may even be a Major winner from one of these.

Eyetoldyouso wrote:I agree with both Maverick & George1507.
The US collegiate system will continue to produce quality golfers who have been well coached and are battle hardened.
The fact that currently the world's top golfers (OWGR) are Europeans is IMO an accident of timing. The European Tour will, more often than not, produce one, maybe two, exceptional golfers; the PGA Tour produces many.

I would agree with that.

Just look at top 100 stats, I added 51-100 to doon the waters top 50 stats.

USA 40 in top 100
Europe 28

Pretty clear that the US is still producing great golfers if not the very best for the time being. A great summer from the US and it all changes.

Does any of this take into account the fact that a fair amount of the Europeans are PGA tour based?

Or that the very top players, regardless of tour affiliation, are actually world golfers rather than european or american.

You can claim it's all europe if you like. but the fact is that most of them play all over the place with only a minimum level of participation on any "regional" tour. The majors and the WGCs make up the greater majority of their year and earnings.

Exactly LJ its more to do with where players ply their trade than the continent of their birth. Most top 50 players regardless of nationality will likely be affiliated to both tours or I'm some cases just the US tour with the thrown in majors and WGC's completing their OGWR points.

The fact is you only need look at top 10 too see only 3 of them are predominately ET players, LW, Kaymer and McIlroy.

LW has won in america but hasn't really competed their regularly on a high level except in the majors which have helped boost his ranking (rightly so) Kaymer won the PGA, made final of the matchplay but other than that again not done great stateside and McIlroy returned from the states because he wasn't cutting it, did well in a few events but should have done better.

There's no irony in the fact none of these 3 players went through the collegiate system where they play top US courses week in week out and go through serious competition and have gone on to do ok stateside but not spectacular or consistently high finishing. Whereas Donald, Casey and many others from Europe and other continents that did goto to college their have gone onto good careers because of the college golf they played out there, even McDowell not having his greatest year but will improve from experience of a good college career he had out there.

To say the US is producing less quality is so far from the truth the difference is now there are simply more players capable of winning now than compared to 5 years ago. If you look at tournament winner this year theirs more first time winners than in recent years and most are all US based

In point of fact the Essex golf union now offer younger players who win on their OOM the opportunity to pick up a golfing scholarship.

In the US

i wanna see westwood's birth certificate. if he's gonna lead the owgr which means he's essentially the president of the united states of golf, he'd darned well better be an american!! i am proud and honored to be leading the call for him to prove his americanshipness.

I think the fact that players on both tours are now able to pick and choose which event to enter. Last week Rory and Lee opted to play elsewhere as the TPC doesn't suit their game. Westwood doesn't give a toss if he has to go to timbuktu instead of playing somewhere he doesn't like. But all the top players do it and yes they can play for fewer points in a lesser championship, but have more of a chance of improving their positions in a less exclusive field.

Darren Clarke had a great win last weekend and I really hope he's on his way back, but Wood handed it to him, and would Darren have had the same success if Lee or Rory etc were in the field.

K@S

Part of my thinking is that the American public would not like non Americans winning thier tournaments on a regular basis.

I don't know how the LPGA tour is holding out.
Where's Kwinni when you need him?

Doc wrote: Last week Rory and Lee opted to play elsewhere as the TPC doesn't suit their game.

Actually they chose to stay at home. Maybe DC would have had more of a challenge if they had decided to play elsewhere