Photo: ©David Cannon/Allsport Sandy Lyle is the only European to win the Players at that was 20 years ago.

the business at Carnoustie back in 1999, another aspect of golf at the (almost) highest level has gone relatively unnoticed. With the notable exception of Sandy Lyle two decades ago, men from the old world haven't been winning The Players Championship, what some of the more uninformed and deluded amongst us like to refer to as the game's 'fifth major,' either.

But, post-Sandy, no more Europeans. Not one. None. Zero. Nada. Zip. Nothing. A Scot winning the US Amateur Championship is seemingly more likely. Oh. . .

Even when the very best Europeans were the very best players in the world back in the 1980s and early 1990s, the rest of the so-called 'Big-Five' weren't getting the job done around what was then viewed as Pete Dye's demonic creation. Not Seve Ballesteros. Not Ian Woosnam. Not Langer. And not Faldo.

At least in Faldo's case, lack of real interest was definitely a factor. At a time when the lanky Englishman was the man to beat in almost every Grand Slam event, your correspondent came across the six-time major champion on the 16th tee in the final round of a Players Championship. As I recall, Faldo was on the edge of contention but was unlikely to win, even if the water-strewn final holes at the TPC of Sawgrass did happen to throw up one of the many wild and wacky swings seen there over the years. But he was up there somewhere.

Photo: © David Cannon /Allsport Nick Faldo played in 21 Players and finished in the Top-ten twice, T2nd in 1992 and 5th in 1994.

Anyway, the point of the story is this: in the last round of what was already one of the game's biggest and most prestigious events, the world's best player was working on his method. Driving from that 16th tee, Faldo pointedly kept his left heel off the ground at address. He was performing a swing drill rather than focusing on the job at hand!

That the Masters Tournament was taking place two weeks later was no coincidence, of course. Notoriously, Faldo cared only for golf's four biggest events and little for anything else. As far as he was concerned, number five might as well have been number 1,000. For Faldo, the Players represented simply a warm-up event for something bigger.

For the rest, other factors have come into play, at least in the Player's early days. The course, for example. Until its latest makeover, Sawgrass has been the quintessential American venue. Long rough bordered the fairways and greens. Water hazards were and are seemingly everywhere. The greens were ultra-fast. In other words, conditions all but impossible to reproduce exactly across the Atlantic, especially if you throw in a bit of humidity. Europe just isn't like Florida.

Still, in recent times such a foreign environment shouldn't have been quite so foreign to the foreign contingent from Europe. With more and more of them spending more and more of their time salivating over the ridiculously rich PGA Tour pickings available since the coming of Tiger, Europe's best are surely becoming more and more familiar with what is known across the pond as 'American golf,' as if no other types of courses exist in the US. So not feeling at home is no longer a valid reason for failure.

Nor is the fact that, until this year, the Players has been played in March. Yes, the 'too early in the season for us' excuse had some merit back in the 1980s, but it is no longer valid. Like their US counterparts, the best Europeans now play a global schedule that lasts almost 12 months of every year.

Photo: © Stan Badz/WireImage The 17th hole with all of the people around it can be a scary experience for a player.

Photo: © Richard Heathcote/Getty Images Tiger Woods hitting his 2nd shot into 18 with the new clubhouse in the background.

This year - apart from the much-changed course and the sparkly-new clubhouse (how do you spell 'gaudy' and 'tasteless?') - the Players is going to be different in at least one other aspect. The foreign press contingent, especially that from the United Kingdom, is going to be much depleted. Deprived of the opportunity to work on Masters-preview pieces, the British journos are staying away in droves. Only three are making the trip to Sawgrass.

Now, this may seem trivial, but it has implications in two important areas. In the early days of the Masters - long before it was recognized as a major - Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts made a point of inviting the leading British pressmen, Henry Longhurst, Pat Ward-Thomas, Leonard Crawley, to Augusta on an annual basis. Consciously or not, they knew that international coverage of their 'toonamint' was vital if it was to transcend its rivals and become one of the most important stops on the schedule.

Television is also important in that respect. The Masters has always been shown on the BBC, on a channel open and free to all. This year, the Players will only be available in Britain on something called Setanta Sports, a fledgling fee-paying satellite channel with, as yet, only a miniscule audience. No one will be watching - or, by extension, caring.

For the Players and PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem not to be learning the lessons of history seems strange. Finchem's apparent indifference only adds to the 'just another big money event' impression that will make the tournament less important outside the confines of the US and, in turn, contribute to the death of any major aspirations.

Secondly - and this may be overestimating the effect of the media more than a little - lack of coverage at home may subconsciously affect the extent to which the European players yearn for a Players win. If no one else sees it as worth making an effort for, why should they?

The mind goes back to dear old Sandy in the immediate aftermath of his victory in '87. Asked what the difference was between this latest win and his Open Championship triumph two years earlier at Royal St. Georges, the guileless and loveable Scot replied, "oh, about 125 years."

So there you have it. Europeans can't be bothered winning the Players because they really don't think it's that big a deal. Sorry, Tim.