Was looking at the Women's world golf rankings, and noticed something very interesting.

The top 50 includes 15 Korean players and 9 Japanese players. Nearly half of the top female golfers in the world are either Korean or Japanese. Also, there are only 6 European women in the top 50, and all are from either Scandinavia or Great Britain. This really seems unusual to me, because in the men's rankings, there is only 1 Japanese player and 1 Korean player in the top 50.

Is there something magical about Korean and Japanese women that makes them great golfers? I'm at a loss to think of anything to explain this. South Korea only has a population of about 50 million, yet nearly one third of the top female golfers come from there. Absolutely amazing.

I have thought of one contributing factor. There is only one top women's professional tour that I have been able to find on the net ... the LPGA. But there are several men's tours, including the asian tour. Any woman wanting to make a career in golf has to play in the most competitive tour. But Asian men can play in the Asian tour and stay close to home. The Asian tour doesn't get many points in the WGR, so it is very difficult for anyone playing that tour primarily to get in the top 50. In fact, the only one is world #32 Toru Taniguchi, who in the last year has played in only 4 PGA events, 2 of them majors, the US Open and the PGA. Now Toru has done exceptionally well in the last year, winning 3 tournaments, placing second 3 times, and a total of 10 top tens.

Perhaps the golf is better on the Asian tour than the WGR give credit, and if the top Asian men were to play on the PGA tour full time, we would see as many Asian men as American men in the top 50. Certainly it is difficult to play your best game if you only fly half way around the world for a major a couple times a year.

Look at Jumbo Ozaki. Born in 1947, he won 94 golf tournaments on the Japan tour, and 1 in New Zealand. I read that he often would shoot in the mid 60s the first round of a PGA tour major, but never ended up challenging for a title come Sunday. Perhaps he was as good as Nicklaus, but had difficulty because he wasn't used to the pressure of being a leader in a PGA event. Who knows how he would have done if he had played full time on the PGA tour. And Jumbo last won in 2002, at the age of 55. That's pretty incredible.

I was just thinking ... in order to get a true idea of the strength of the Asian and Japan tours, perhaps there should be a fifth major, and instead of it being the Player's, make it the Japan Open, with maybe 10 guaranteed spots for Asian and Japan tour players. Then we could get an idea of just how the top Asian players stack up against the other top players in the world without the jet lag.