Did the English golfers send a Ryder Cup message? Maybe

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The English flag was front and center as Ian Poulter spoke of the significance of Sunday's Accenture Match Play win.

MARANA, Ariz. -- It's probably unrealistic to think that a tournament held in the Arizona desert in February will have an impact 220 days from now in the lush and slightly mysterious pastoral surroundings in Wales. Too many variables remain, too many unknowns yet to be revealed to make a plausible connection.

And yet, why does this feeling exist that a Ryder Cup message -- however subtle it may be -- was delivered this week at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club?

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In a week's worth of action at the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship, the nine golfers competing under the English flag kept making their presence known, kept winning matches and dominating the bracket in this 64-man field. On the flip side, it wasn't hard to notice just how many American flags seemed to disappear off the big board each day.

Ian Poulter's 4 and 2 win over fellow countryman Paul Casey on Sunday was the cream on top of the strawberries, but the bigger picture is that England's nine players performed much better and made much more of an impact than the 20 players from the United States.

Considering the Accenture Match Play Championship is the lone match-play event on the PGA TOUR and the last match-play tournament for many of these players prior to the 2010 Ryder Cup the first week of October, that might mean a lot. Or it might mean nothing. Who really knows at this point?

But we do know that European Ryder Cup captain Colin Montgomerie has to be very pleased at what he saw coming out of Dove Mountain this week. From No. 64 seed's Ross McGowan's opening-round upset of top overall seed Steve Stricker to Poulter's breakthrough win -- his first on the PGA TOUR -- clearly the English are in peak form right now.

"There's been a lot of great talent in England for such a long time," Poulter, who was elevated to No. 5 in the Official World Golf Rankings after the win, said Sunday. "And it's so nice to see guys actually on the golf course. We've been waiting for a long time."

We've certainly been waiting for Poulter to win on TOUR; he came into this week 0 for 102 in his career. Just as we had been waiting for Casey to break through too, which he finally did so last year by winning the Shell Houston Open, ending his drought in his 75th TOUR start.

The English now have the No. 4 (Lee Westwood), No. 5 (Poulter) and No. 6 (Casey) players in the world. Add in other potential teammates on Monty's squad, and Team Europe has eight of the top 15 players in the world, while the U.S. counters with just five.

Of course, the top three are Americans. But while Stricker was shockingly dismissed by McGowan on Wednesday, the other two -- Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson -- were not in attendance this week. Mickelson was on a family vacation; Tiger was preoccupied with some other event you may have heard about. In a cruel twist of fate, their absences paved the way for two more English players to receive invites, Chris Wood and McGowan.

With a record number of spots in the field, the English owned this event. Four of the nine advanced to at least the third round, and three reached the quarterfinals. All told, English golfers were 18-8 this week, with three of those losses coming against fellow Englishmen.

"We had nine Englishmen in the field this week, which was impressive," Casey said. "...I think it's great how many good players we've got coming out of the UK right now. We're all friends, but I think we're all competitors deep down and would like to sort of be the best Englishman -- not just this week but in the world rankings and all the rest of it."

Of course, the next big challenge will be for England to break the drought in majors. Not since Nick Faldo's Masters win in 1996 have the English been able to celebrate a win in any of the four majors. But their confidence seems to be at an extremely high level right now.

Westwood is overdue for a major, of course, and Poulter and Casey are legitimate contenders. Luke Donald says his wrist woes are beginning to fade, and Oliver Wilson and Ross Fisher could surprise in any event.

The English believe their time is coming, but they also know all that potential must one day be transformed into success, especially on the big stages. That's why Poulter's win Sunday in the first World Golf Championships event of the year is such a huge boost. Any Englishman winning in America is worthy of a longer glance, if only because it doesn't happen that often.

"It is a burden," Poulter acknowledged. "We get asked all the time -- when are you guys finally going to win?"

Added Wilson: "I don't know what it will take. Maybe it will take a major or something for people to open their eyes, but we've got good opportunities for that. And, fingers crossed, it's going to happen in the next year or so."

And maybe that eye-opening experience could also happen this year in Wales if the English lead the European charge in reclaiming the Ryder Cup the U.S. won at Valhalla in 2008.

Whether you consider it a piece of foreshadowing or just a stretch of the imagination, there's no denying the English came to play this week.