With seven of the world's top 15 currently playing at Wentworth, it looks as if the European Tour's flagship event has not been significantly affected by the PGA Tour's latest attempt to keep all the top players Stateside.

Yet there is one aspect that has been causing concern. Not a single American has taken the trouble to make the transatlantic trip to join the 150-strong field for the BMW PGA Championship.

Vijay Singh, the Fijian who regards himself as a world player, was talking this week about how it saddens him that many Europeans travel to Florida for the Players Championship, the equivalent of this week's PGA, but not vice-versa.

"I would like to see a lot more Americans coming over," he said, and suggested that one way of achieving that would be to raise its status to a world golf championship event.

The WGCs were created in 1996 and endorsed by the tours in America, Europe, Asia, Japan, Australasia and South Africa with the aim of enhancing golf worldwide. The success of this "worldwide" objective can be judged by the fact that all three individual strokeplay WGCs this year are in the US.

In response to Singh's suggestion of making the PGA a WGC, Keith Waters, the European Tour's director of international policy, said: "We offered one or two events we considered suitable to be WGC tournaments, but the PGA Tour flatly refused to consider them."

It is that kind of non-co-operation born of stifling self-interest that could hasten a polarisation between America and the rest of the world. Padraig Harrington was talking last week of how all the world tours outside the US should unite in order to compete and survive.

The European Tour, in any case, have been moving in recent years towards world status with co-sanctioned events in Asia, South Africa, Australasia and the Middle-East. It would need only to crank that up a notch or two by including Japan and upgrade tournaments such as the South Africa Open and Australian Open.

Harrington's view was founded on the way last week's Irish Open was hit by the PGA Tour's new FedEx Cup that will conclude with a series of play-offs in the autumn. The incentive is to remain in the US to collect points towards qualification.

In Ireland, Harrington and Lee Westwood were the only players in the field inside the world's top 50 for the arrival of the European Tour in the British Isles. It left little doubt that the lure of the PGA Tour is growing ever stronger.

Singh even suggested that in the face of the FedEx Cup, the increased world ranking points on offer at Wentworth were insufficient. "The FedEx Cup has overshadowed the world rankings in the States," he said. "They hardly talk about the world rankings any more. The only way is to make this a WGC or increase the purse to the point that guys cannot resist."

If there is to be a WGC in Europe, however, the PGA might not be the one. The European Tour are hardly falling over themselves to let the PGA Tour and any of the other world bodies get their hands on their own pride and joy.

The Scottish Open is a more likely prospect if it could be moved away from the week before the Open. In its early days there was an ambition to raise it to WGC status, and the regular attendance of players like Phil Mickelson, who has indicated he will play again this year, would help its cause.

The British Masters and the new Mercedes-Benz Championship in Germany, which is a limited-field event in any case, would also be contenders, but first the PGA Tour have to be brought to the negotiating table.

The creation of a viable alternative may be the only way.