Players' Championship of Europe:Paul McGinley has hailed Padraig Harrington's British Open victory as vital in breaking down the barriers to more European success in the majors.
Before Harrington's memorable play-off victory over Ryder Cup team-mate Sergio Garcia on Sunday, 31 majors had been played without a European winner, a streak going all the way back to Paul Lawrie's win on the same Carnoustie course in 1999.
There had been several near-misses of course. Harrington missed the four-man play-off - which did feature France's Thomas Levet - at Muirfield in 2002 by a shot after a bogey on the 72nd hole, while Thomas Bjorn blew the 2003 Open at Sandwich by dropping four shots in three holes late in the final round.
Colin Montgomerie also came agonisingly close to winning the 2006 US Open at Winged Foot, only to run up a double-bogey six on the 72nd hole.
Garcia is the latest European star to have to cope with letting a major title slip from his grasp after starting the final day with a three-shot lead, but McGinley insisted: "The big thing was we had a European winner. The press will no longer go on about it.
"The Irish press have been going on for so long about when we were going to get an Irish winner of the Irish Open and Padraig has done that (in a play-off at Adare Manor in May).
"The next thing was a European winner of a major and Padraig has done that now. He is knocking down the hurdles one after the other and all credit to him."
McGinley was joint third with Harrington going into the final round, only to fade to 19th with a closing 73, but the Dubliner had something to celebrate yesterday after receiving a late, if expected, invitation to the US PGA Championship in Tulsa next month.
Darren Clarke has also been invited, and it means all 12 of Ian Woosnam's Ryder Cup team from last September will be playing in the final major of the season.
"What a delightful shock," added McGinley, a lowly 152nd in the world, ahead of the Deutsche Bank Players' Championship which gets under way in Hamburg today.
"The invitation could not have come at a better time because I feel my game is turning round again. It's a great confidence-booster."
The enthralling finish at Carnoustie finally drew attention away from the other burning issue of last week, that of players taking performance-enhancing drugs.
The comments were met with incredulity by the players at Carnoustie, in particular Player's fellow South Africans Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, and Sweden's Niclas Fasth has added his thoughts on the matter.
Asked if he had any experience of doping, Fasth said: "Nothing more than rumours, and that was years ago. And it wasn't the European Tour.
"I think drug testing has as much a place in golf as in any other sport.
"However, more in golf than other sports you catch a lot of innocent people simply taking medicines, and that would be devastating for the people involved."
Bernhard Langer has withdrawn from this week's championship after undergoing a kidney operation yesterday.
Langer was taken to hospital in Hamburg in the morning suffering from a kidney stone and surgeons operated to repair the lining of his kidney.
The former Ryder Cup captain, who turns 50 next month, is expected to have another operation next week to actually remove the stone.
Langer is hopeful of returning to action at the KLM Open in Zandvoort from August 23rd-26th, where his teenage son Stefan is also in the field.
Stefan caddied for his father as he partnered Marcel Siem to victory in the World Cup in Barbados last December, 16 years after winning the same event.
