General / Bill Elliott / 04 November 2008 / Leave a Comment

After ignoring the rest of the world, the US Tour is apprehensive about the future funding of their tournaments but, as this week's event in Shanghai demonstrates, if the Europeans pay American players then they will come, says Bill Elliott.

Right, here we go. No sooner has Robert Karlsson won the 2008 Order of Merit than we're hurtling into the 2009 European season and The Race to Dubai. Excited? I bet you are.

But you will be - excited, that is - I promise. This long, slow scramble to Dubai caper is going to change a lot of things about the European Tour and mostly what it is going to change is the quality of the fields for the bigger events. Proof, if proof be needed, is there for all to see when the new gig gets under way this week in Shanghai.

The HSBC Champions elite 77 man field (no halfway cut remember) includes not just the usual European suspects - Padraig Harrington, Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood et al - but also has Phil Mickelson, Anthony Kim and Camilio Villegas strutting their stuff in China. The only real way in which this event could be strengthened would be if Tiger Woods suddenly turned up and asked for a game.

And though obviously this won't happen this time, don't bet against the Great One making his way officially to the European Tour before too long. You see, the secret of life is now, always has been, timing. In this sense the Euros have just got very lucky indeed.

While the US circuit is suddenly filled with doubts and alarms over future financing of their tournaments, the European Tour is happily in bed with Leisurecorp, the business face company of the oil-rich Dubai sheiks. Shed-loads of money have been made available, not just to fund the climactic event of the Race to Dubai next November when 20million dollars will be on offer one way or another, but to develop, expand and occasionally shore-up the European Tour's global circuit.

Unlike the US Tour, this money is guaranteed. No credit crunch can take a bite out of Dubai, not yet anyway. The American Tour, meanwhile, is funded to a huge extent by a combination of banks and car companies and we all know where those businesses are heading right now. No wonder Tim Finchem, head honcho of pro golf in the USA, admits that his European opposite, George O'Grady, has "done a great job".

The balance of power is shifting. Not enough to make the European Tour the senior circuit - America, remember, is home to half the world's estimated 60million golfers - but enough to create a much more equal playing field and one that Tiger's advisers may well suggest their man may only ignore at his peril.

After all, Tiger is being paid a reported 50million dollars to create his first signature golf course in Dubai and this sort of money is, for now anyway, only available in the Middle East. I expect Tiger to be an official European Tour member by 2010 at the latest, a decision that will mean he must commit to five events outside the four majors and the three World Championships with two of those events in Europe itself.

The name of the pro game now is global, global, global. The US Tour's strategy has been to concentrate on the game inside their own country. They have ignored the rest of the world and the astute O'Grady has grasped his opportunity quite brilliantly.

While momentum has yet to build for the Race to Dubai the early signs are positive. It may be obvious to suggest that pro sportsmen play games for money but this is the truth of it. Pay them and they will come.

Of course while American stars like Mickelson, Kim and Villegas are most welcome this side of the Atlantic, there is a posse of stand-out players waiting to greet them. If 2009 is to be remembered for anything in golf then it is the emergence of some terrific European players.

Padraig Harrington has surpassed anything I believed he was capable of with his two majors this year and now has to be regarded as second only to Woods as a principle contender. Lee Westwood has done everything except close a few more deals on the course and I expect him to emerge even stronger in 2009. Sergio Garcia, too, has regained momentum and purpose alongside a reassuring, if belated, maturity as a person. The Spaniard would have moved to No.2 in the world if he had won at Valderrama.

Young Europeans Martin Kaymer, Ross Fisher, Oliver Wilson and Graeme McDowell promise much now while I suspect Darren Clarke is about to re-enter the game's higher echelons and do so as an even better golfer than he was before his wife Heather so tragically fell ill.

For America there is the emergence of Kim to celebrate as well as Hunter Mahan. Kim is the real deal, Mahan just might be the same. And, of course, there is Boo Weekley. Daft as a brush he may be but Boo remains one of my favourite players and a man to watch in 2009.

In between shooting animals - his real passion, although I wish he'd find something else to do - the good, old boy is a constantly improving golfer who just might win a major next year. Don't say you haven't been warned...

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