US’ domination fades, Europeans take hold of the game of golf
After ruling the world of golf for decades, the United States is rapidly losing grounds to Europe. The European region has strongly emerged as a destination to produce golfers with more talent and skills than those in their counterparts, the US.
A consistent rise in the rankings of the European players reflect on their success over the past few years at the same time decline of the US players from the golf scene.
At present, five of the top 10 positions in the Official World Golf Rankings are held by European golfers, which is not something you usually observe.
Despite the fact that Tiger Woods leads the rankings after winning three of his first five appearances on the PGA Tour this season, the Europeans are still in contention for the top Spot, and Rory McIlroy is one of them.
McIlroy has emerged as a great star in the past three years, as he has astounded everyone in the world of golf by his amazing skills. He won both the money list titles on the PGA Tour and the European Tour in 2012, and became the youngest world number one
player after Woods.
It is not just rankings that only matters, the European golfers have shown spectacular performances in all the major championships lately. This has further added some advantage to Europeans to become the world’s recognized golf power.
Major championships play a crucial role in building up a player’s profile. This is a fact that every European golfer is very well aware of.
There was a time when Americans used to dominate the major golf championships by winning a majority of them in each season. The Americans used to win around 90 per cent of the major championships each year, ,before Europeans got hold onto it in the past
few years. The absence of the elite US players like Tiger Woods gave chance to the Europeans to dominate the major championship.
During the last three years, excluding the current season, Americans have only managed to win four of the 12 major titles and their European counterparts, on the other hand, have snatched five major championships.
Apart from the rankings and major wins, European players also dominated the PGA and European Tours in terms of points as well as prize money. Donald won the money list titles on both the PGA Tour and the European Tour in the same season – 2011 golf season
– and became the first player ever to achieve that feat.
Rory McIlroy also kept on chasing him until the last tournament of the European Tour and stood second on the money list. The very next season witnessed McIlroy doing the same and becoming the only second players to win both money list titles in the same
season. Therefore, it seems that Europeans were dominating in each and every aspect of the game of golf.
A new season has now started and everyone is looking forward to see if the Europeans keep their winning momentum intact in 2013. So far, it seems that Woods is leading American’s camp really well. However, the whole season is in front and time will tell
which continent dominates the sport this season.
Similarly, if the US starts producing some of the top class players again such as youngster Keegan Bradley, then the US can definitely give a tough competition to the Europeans.
So far, it does not seem to happen in the near future because of the declining pattern of the game in the US and emergence of great players from the European continent. The Europeans only need to focus and keep their game consistent as did throughout the
last two seasons.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
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