Not just the luscious glory of springtime in Georgia, but good times for European golf too.

It's more than 25 years since Europe's leading players infiltrated Augusta in the considerable backwash of Seve Ballesteros, and the trail that was blazed has now become a well-worn path.

If the tournament remains deeply rooted in the image of this southern state neck of the woods . . . no queues for Brokeback Mountain here . . .

the European influence has played its part in transporting a cosmopolitan piece of the outside world down Interstate 20.

The manner in which the once all-American preserve of The Masters has changed irrevocably was there for all to see the day before the first round as players, their guests and their agents congregated under the famous old oak tree in front of the clubhouse.

There you would have found Henrik Stenson, the rising star of the European game, Sergio Garcia, Padraig Harrington, Darren Clarke, Thomas Levet, Thomas Bjorn, Lee Westwood, David Howell and Luke Donald, who has already won on the PGA Tour this season.

While Europe's total of eight players in the world's top 30 is not necessarily something to be shouted through the pines, America's current count of 10 is indicative of how the spread of talent has become more even. No wonder then that Europe has laid claim to the Ryder Cup, winning four of the last five matches, and no wonder there is well-founded optimism of an unprecedented third victory in a row at the K Club in September.

However, the sense of wellbeing generated by a series of impressive collective performances is overshadowed not just by Augusta's oak tree but by annual disappointment at The Masters.

Europe's last champion here was Jose Maria Olazabal in 1999, and if there has been a clutch of top-10 finishes in the intervening six tournaments, no player from our side of the pond has ever remotely looked like winning the game's most unique major championship.

Much was made last season of Donald's tie for third place, and while he left a mark with his precision and his patience on his first appearance, he was a full seven shots behind Tiger Woods. If Garcia and Harrington have also broken into the top 10, the closest any European player has come to success since 1999 is Olazabal himself whose fourth place in 2002 left him five shots adrift of Woods.

"Just a matter of time, we've got to be a bit patient, " says current Ryder Cup captain Ian Woosnam. "When we get one winner, then we'll get a few more as well."

Meanwhile, Miguel Angel Jimenez, who has had two top-10 finishes here since Olazabal's victory, insists that the new wave of European golf is building by the year. "You've got to remember that players like Seve Ballesteros and Nick Faldo who led Europe's domination at The Masters were exceptional. Great, great players. We now have some very good players, and it's just that the wave hasn't broken yet. But it will pretty soon."

But the rise of European players through the world rankings, and the verve and confidence they have displayed at the Ryder Cup simply has not been translated into hard results at Augusta.

"Just so happens that we haven't won since 1999, " shrugs Colin Montgomerie who has precious few Masters clippings in his scrapbook. "We had a great, great record in the past, and it's just that others have won it since. Coincidence more than a lack of European talent."

If The Masters' roll of dishonour continues to frustrate, there is also no escape from the grim reality that Paul Lawrie's British Open victory at Carnoustie just three months after Olazabal's second Augusta success stands in not so splendid isolation as the last major win by a European any time, anywhere.

Admittedly, Garcia, Bjorn and Levet have all knocked on the door of glory in their different ways, while Harrington could have, maybe should have, secured himself a place in the play-off when Ernie Els won the 2002 British Open at Muirfield, but The Masters, which was the one-time oasis of European golf, has become a wasteland.

"It's hard to explain why we haven't won a major since '99, " says Donald. "We've had enough good players to win, that's for sure, and the team for the K Club will be one of the hardest European Ryder Cup teams to qualify for.

Someone, hopefully me, will break the mould and win a major and that will inspire other guys to do the same."

Montgomerie disagrees that the added length of Augusta has adversely affect European chances . . . "I think we hit the ball as far as the Americans, " he says . . . but clearly something has militated against a once vibrant challenge. Paul McGinley's suggestion that an elongated Augusta has taken a lot of Europeans out of the equation falls on deaf ears as far as Woosnam is concerned.

"I presume he's saying the Europeans are not long enough, but I wouldn't agree with that."

In the nine Masters between 1988 and 1996, Europe's players dominated by winning a remarkable seven times with Nick Faldo leading the way with three victories. Sandy Lyle, Bernhard Langer, Woosnam and Olazabal also won in what was the heyday of European golf at Augusta.

The rise and rise of Woods changed everything and titled the axis towards America again, yet Mike Weir has managed to win a Masters in that time, and elsewhere players such as Ben Curtis, Shaun Micheel and Todd Hamilton, who are not in the same league as Europe's best, have also won majors.

So the feel good of the Ryder Cup has no bearing on individual championships? "It's not quite like that, " says Woosnam who played the first two rounds with his opposite number Tom Lehman, "it's just that the Ryder Cup is a different event. We gel extremely well as a team, but it's different to the majors."

Although going into the weekend, a refreshed Clarke, Harrington and Howell were offering some hope that the sequence of European disappointment at Augusta could be broken at last, it appeared as if the game was up for Garcia, Donald and Bjorn. Meanwhile, McGinley, Westwood, Stenson, Levet and Montgomerie yet again were consigned to watching the denouement on television.

"It would be good if we were able to knock one off between now and the Ryder Cup, " reflects Woosnam, "but at the end of the day we've got some very good players."

This evening's final round will determine how good as Europe waits for a second coming at The Masters.