General / Tareq Quiroz / 24 November 2009 / Leave a Comment

The good times continue for American and European golf but are South Africa and Australia experiencing a long-term downturn, asks Tareq Quiroz

A magical week in Dubai has finally given Lee Westwood the kind of recognition he deserves. Domination in Dubai resulted in him receiving accolades galore. When the new world rankings were announced on Monday morning it was great to see Westwood sitting proudly at number four. A further glance at the top ten showed an amazing six Europeans in there. The rise of the Euros won't have gone unnoticed in other parts of the world.

But while we are taking all the plaudits I am struck by the more obvious change in the make-up of the world rankings. Namely, what has happened to that bunch of golfers from the 'rest of the world'? Geoff Ogilvy is their leading player at a relatively low 14th place in the rankings. Check back to this week just a solitary year ago and they had three players in the world's top eight and a total of eight players in the world's top 20 two compared to just four now.

As always, there are mitigating circumstances for some players but we can't excuse everyone. Vijay Singh, Ernie Els and Camilo Villegas have all plummeted out of the top ten while Mike Weir, Trevor Immelman, Adam Scott and KJ Choi are on varying degrees of a downward spiral.

I think that the sudden drop off from the Australian contingent is most noticeable. They used to look so powerful with Robert Allenby, Stuart Appleby, Adam Scott, Ogilvy and Aaron Baddeley leading a strong pack. There are more of them now but other than Ogilvy they really aren't competing with the top boys.

If the demise of the Aussies is shocking then the fall from the top of Singh and Els is just sad. They were both in the top eight this time last year but now Els is 17th and Singh way down at 24th. Sure, they have both had their reasons but it is quite clear that the older you get the longer it takes and the harder it is to get back. I sincerely hope that both these great champions come back strong in 2010 but it won't be easy with so much young talent around.

Rest of the World players have won an impressive 12 of the last 40 majors and at least one a year for the last ten years. That is some record, but is the golden age over? South Africa has a great record of producing world class golfers but you have to question if the current young batch is good enough. Hopefully Immelman can regain his old form but I don't think the likes of Charl Schwartzel and Richard Sterne are top draw.

I really do think that we will continue to see this trend of a drop off from golfing forces like South Africa and Australia over the next few seasons which begs the question, where is the next batch of stars coming from? Japan's Ryo Ishikawa is some player and Danny Lee from New Zealand is already hot property. It is great to see young players now coming from all over the world but the lack of talent from golf's heartlands of South Africa and Australia has got to be a concern.

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