English golfers on a roll with inspiration from past stars

MIAMI-English golf is riding high with 10 players ranked among the top 70 in the world and Paul Casey thinks the current situation can be traced back some two decades or so.

World No. 6 Casey was inspired by the exploits of the great European players of the 1980s and 1990s such as Scotsman Colin Montgomerie and he suspects the rest of the current generation were too.

"My take on it is that it's the result of the great European golf that I was watching when I was a kid," Casey said Tuesday ahead of this week’s World Golf Championships CA Championship at Doral’s Blue Monster.

"(Nick) Faldo, Seve (Ballesteros), (Ian) Woosnam, (Bernhard) Langer, (Sandy) Lyle, Monty, those are the guys that were my golfing heroes. Olazabal was quite young but he was part of that movement.

"I was not old enough to see (Jack) Nicklaus, (Tom) Watson, (Gary) Player and (Arnold) Palmer, but those Europeans got me interested in the game.

"I think if you asked these other Englishmen who have now risen among us in the world rankings, that was the reason they got hooked.

"It has just taken 20 years or so for us to hone our skills. Overnight success always takes 10 or 20 years. It seems very quick but it has been quite a long time."

Now the Englishmen are each hopeful they can be the first major champion from England of their generation.

"It’s a bit of a race right now, sort of a challenge (because) each one of us want to win a major and who is going to be the first guy to do it," Casey said.

"When you think of how many good Englishmen there have been, potential is one thing but these guys are starting to fulfill it and show everybody we have a lot of great players."

Talking about the strength of English golf is a nice change for Casey, who at 32 recalls it was only a few years ago that he was asked why there were only two of his countrymen ranked in the top 100.

There are 24 Europeans in this week’s field, just one less than the American contingent, with one-third of the European contingent from England.

With Tiger Woods continuing his self-imposed break -- he has not played in nearly four months since reports of marital infidelity first surfaced -- defending champion Phil Mickelson will be the biggest gallery attraction.

However, anyone coming to watch Mickelson play a practice round will be disappointed, because he does not plan to arrive until Wednesday night, on the eve of the first round.