European golfers playing below par

IF they didn't realise it before the Players Championship at Sawgrass over the weekend, the leading European golfers now know how difficult it will be to bridge the six-year gap since one of them captured a major championship.

When Jose-Maria Olazabal won the Masters at Augusta National in 1999 - followed a few months later by Paul Lawrie's Open Championship success - few imagined how many years would elapse before another European would add his name to one of these coveted trophies. Ironically, the drought coincided with a remarkable run of success for Europe in the Ryder Cup - they have won four of the last five contests.

The Players Championship may not be a major in the strict sense of the word, but the world's top 50 were all involved in the weather-disrupted event that ended on Monday night in victory for Fred Funk, one of the American flops at Oakland Hills. Significantly, however, of the Europeans, only Luke Donald counted when push came to shove down the treacherous Sawgrass stretch in the final round.