Martin Kaymer joins the growing list of stars staying in Europe

It's a growing story, and an even bigger problem, as another one of the top golfers in the world has decided to stick to Europe in 2011 instead of coming over to the states for competition.

Martin Kaymer, current PGA Champion and third-ranked player in the world, has announced he will be sticking mostly to the European Tour next season instead of focusing his game on the PGA Tour, where he has only the lone win.

The German-born player said he feels more comfortable on the European Tour, and will stay on that side of the pond for most of the year.

Kaymer is the third big-name player to do this, after Lee Westwood and Rory McIlroy announced their intent to stick to the European Tour in 2011, with Ian Poulter still threatening to play most of his schedule in Europe. That means four of the top-11 players in the world would be opting out of PGA Tour play, meaning the talent pool that has always swayed the PGA Tour's way is in serious limbo and could eventually lean towards the Euros.

The PGA Tour faces a real problem here, and it seems not a lot are addressing it. While sponsors are slowly making their way back to golf, it seems a tougher sale if most of the top names are competing elsewhere.

The only positive is the buzz that will surround the four major championships. While they're always the best events of the season anyway, having all these names together for just a short list of events means the majors will be all that more exciting.

No matter, in just a few short seasons, with the uprising of talent in Europe, this could be the trend that'll be tough to buck, mostly because everyone enjoys their own bed over a hotel, and being able to play golf near home is just an advantage the PGA Tour won't be able to offer Europeans ... ever.

Related: Martin Kaymer, Rory McIlroy, Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter

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Big names are passing up the PGA Tour for Europe

It's not bad enough that Europe has gone and snatched the Ryder Cup from the United States' hands. Now they're going to be keeping their best golfers over there too?

Word is filtering out of Europe that Lee Westwood and Rory McIlroy, two of the finest golfers on the planet -- whether they qualify as "better" than Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson is, frankly, irrelevant here -- will be playing in Europe for more, or even most, of 2011.

Westwood is only a second-place finish from taking over the No. 1 spot in the world from Woods. (Yeah, yeah, never-won-a-major, blah blah -- save it.) But what's more significant than that is that he's actively turning his back on the PGA Tour to play in Europe. Westwood has had his problems with the PGA Tour before, and he's leaving no doubt about his intentions now.

"I don't want to be dictated to by having to go to America to play FedEx Cup when it doesn't really mean that much to me," he said, via EuropeanTour.com. "I think they