Given that the European Tour is in some serious financial trouble at the moment - in part, thanks to the sponsor that he wears on his cap - Rory McIlroy has decided to play in the United States on the 2010 PGA Tour, according to the Daily Mail.

The report says that McIlroy will announce the decision before the Dubai World Championship, which is the culminating event on the European Tour's Race to Dubai schedule. 

In what is kind of the reverse desired effect of the Race to Dubai, McIlroy and his agent realized "only needs to add four more events to those he played in America this year to qualify for the Fedex Cup."

And, since the European Ryder Cup team is made up of both European Tour points and the Offiical World Golf Rankings, McIlroy remains confident that he can make the team via the OWGR.

Let's be serious, though.  This means that McIlroy will eventually make a priority of playing in the USA more than just those extra four events.  Lawrence Donegan keenly sums up the virtues of spending more time in the US.  Three of four majors are played here.  Traveling on a plane back and forth stinks - even if in first class, doing it a lot is still no fun.  He hasn't produced enough on the course to operate his own plane, so he will be globetrotting with the rest of us.  In other words, he is in the same situation as fellow British Islanders that ultimately have chosen the US over Europe.  See: Casey, Paul and Poulter, Ian.

This news comes on the heels of Thomas Bjorn acquiescing to the public spat with friend Padraig Harrington about the Euro Tour's Tournaments Players Committee proposal to change playing requirements to include specific events in continental Europe (while slapping Asia, Africa, and Australasia in the face).  By stepping down, Bjorn implicitly agrees with Harrington - though he denies it - and also acknowledges that a current player simply cannot chair a committee with so many trying and stressful decisions hinging on that chairmanship.

The confluence of events really does signal serious problem with the European Tour - primarily from a financial standpoint, but also from a talent standpoint.  The problems are intertwined.  With more money in the US, Euro Tour talents are likely to leave for the purses and weather in America.  The Race to Dubai sought to remedy that by luring more Euros to stay home more often.  Now that the Race to Dubai is in flux financially and structurally, Euro Tour players are hedging their Dubai bet to play in America. 

That causes problems for someone like Bjorn, who is the players' kep rep in decisions that will drastically impact their futures.  Ultimately, Bjorn is one of the few players remaining predominantly in Europe that has an official role to fill in balancing the demands of Euro-born top notch talent and the whispers of the Euro rank-and-file that cannot straddle the Atlantic Ocean to chase dollars.