Solheim Cup 2011: European Domination of Golf Not Limited to Men's Game

Forget golf. Fans of all sports in America are constantly having to deal with a new world order of sorts in international competition. Long gone are the days that Americans win competitions just because they showed up.

This change has been most notable in sports like basketball, baseball and tennis, but it has also occurred in golf. Given how dominant Tiger Woods was for over a decade, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that the rest of the world has caught up to the Americans on the golf course.

We have seen it in the last few Ryder Cup competitions with the men. The European team has won the competition four out of the last five times it has been played.

The U.S. had managed to stay on top of things in the Solheim Cup, the women's version of the Ryder Cup, but that worm is starting to turn.

The team from Europe won the 2011 Solheim Cup by a final score of 15-13.

You have to wonder where the U.S. team goes from here. One of the biggest criticisms of the U.S. Ryder Cup team is that they were caught off guard when Europe started consistently winning the event and they didn't know how to respond.

From 1927 until 1983, the United States won all but three Ryder Cup competitions. Since then, the team from Europe has won the event three times, as often as the U.S. has.

I'm not sure what the U.S. Solheim Cup team will do from here to make sure the same thing doesn't happen in the women's game, but they need to make sure it doesn't. American golf is too good and too proud to lag behind in both the men's and women's game.