Asign that the balance of power is shifting away from the US is the increasing number of European Tour members rising up the world rankings, writes Douglas Lowe.
A tour analysis released yesterday showed that more than half of the world's top 30 in the final 2005 list are European Tour members, a salient point as the US PGA Tour continues to lure the top players Stateside.
Care has to be taken not to get too excited about this trend. Many, such as Vijay Singh and Sergio Garcia, are dual members and others like Michael Campbell, Ernie Els and Retief Goosen are not actually Europeans. There are only nine Europeans in the top 30 and the last European to win a majorwas Paul Lawrie in 1999. Yet there is cause for optimism with Montgomerie and Campbell each rising 73 places to Nos.8 and 16 respectively.
Campbell, who is based in Brighton, said: "This is great and I hope it sends a message to all of European Tour players."
European Tour members in world top 30 2 V Singh [Fij], 4 R Goosen [SA], 5 E Els [SA], 6 S Garcia [Spa], 8 C Montgomerie [Sco], 9 A Scott [Aus], 11 D Howell [Eng], 12 A Cabrera [Arg], 13 L Donald [Eng], 16 M Campbell [NZ], 17 P Harrington [Ire], 18 D Clarke [NIre], 21 P McGinley [Ire], 22 T Bjorn [Den], 24 N O'Hern [Aus]
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article