European golf on the rise, but not as fast as it seems

AP golf writer Doug Ferguson says if Phil Mickelson finishes outside the top 25 the top five players in the world rankings will all be Europeans.

Two things:

First, the world rankings are impossible to understand as they are, but consider that the European players who do not play regularly on the PGA Tour simply do not face the week to week competition that U.S. players do. If they did, wouldn't U.S. players be playing on that tour?

Second, most of the up and coming players are Americans: Nick Watney, Bubba Watson, Dustin Johnson, Anthony Kim, just to name a few.

And Luke Donald, who is among that top 5 for Europe, has been playing in the states for a long time now. His claim on Europe is weakening.

Having said all that, the top tier of European players only makes the state of the game stronger. The Tiger Woods era is over. He's still a great player and likely will win again, and maybe more than others, but his own slide has coincided with the ascendance of players like Martin Kaymer, Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell. None of them, or any other top European players, are likely to go anywhere but up.

All of which makes the Masters as much of a jump ball as any in recent memory.

-- Gary Potosky