ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — The results of the last two major golf championships — a resounding seven-stroke victory by Louis Oosthuizen of South Africa at the British Open on Sunday and the United States Open win by Graeme McDowell of Northern Ireland a month earlier at Pebble Beach — have had an effect well beyond the borders of their countries.

Graeme McDowell of Northern Ireland won the U.S. Open this year, his first tour win.
They have reverberated in the United States. Last November, based on where the majors were scheduled to be played, 2010 had been expected to provide Tiger Woods with his best chance in a while to win two more major titles. Now with 14, Woods continues his quest to break Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18.

Instead, two somewhat obscure non-American golfers followed Phil Mickelson’s win at the Masters by taking down the best in the world on two of the biggest stages.

The unexpected results have put a spotlight on a trend in major championship golf that started in 2007 with Ángel Cabrera’s first United States Open win and Padraig Harrington’s first British Open victory. Since then, international players have won 9 of the 13 major championships, including three of the past four, dating to Y. E. Yang’s win over Woods in the 2009 P.G.A. Championship.

To grasp the significance of this international run, consider the dominance of American golfers since all four Grand Slam events resumed play in 1946 after a three-year interruption. From then until 1990, when Nick Faldo of England won the Masters and the British Open, and Wayne Grady of Australia won the P.G.A. Championship, Americans won 132 of the 180 major championships — 73 percent.

A five-year slump began in 1990, when golfers from the United States won just 7 of the 20 majors, including an unprecedented international sweep of the Grand Slam events in 1994. From then until 2007, international players had an average of one major victory a year.

Whether this latest resurgence by international golfers can endure until the 2016 Olympics is an open question, but it certainly comes at a good time for those who are working to build international interest in the sport in the prelude to golf’s return to the Games.

A look at the world rankings shows 7 American players in the top 20, 8 in the top 25 and 11 of the top 30. But top-ranked Woods is 34, No. 2-ranked Phil Mickelson is 40, No. 4-ranked Steve Stricker is 43 and No. 5-ranked Jim Furyk is 40. Of the 11 American golfers in the top 30, just three are in their 20s: Anthony Kim is 25, Dustin Johnson is 26 and Hunter Mahan is 28.

The two most promising young players in the world are international stars: Rory McIlroy, 21, of Northern Ireland, and Ryo Ishikawa, an 18-year-old Japanese marvel. Ishikawa, who tied for 23rd at the British Open, shot a round of 58 earlier this year to win on the Japan Tour, the same day McIlroy — who opened at St. Andrews with a record-tying 63 — shot 62 to win at Quail Hollow.

That brings us back to the 27-year-old Oosthuizen, who outshone McIlroy and Ishikawa at St. Andrews. He apparently has come of age after knocking around on the Sunshine Tour in South Africa and the European Tour. The question is, how could a little-known golfer with a lone win on the European Tour deliver such a thorough thrashing to a British Open field that was among the year’s best?

Peter Dawson, the chief executive of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, said he thought the victory by Oosthuizen was well earned.

“The margin of victory, his demeanor on the golf course, the quality of his game and the steady progress that he’s been making in the world rankings and in Tour events, I think, very much mark him as a player on the rise,” Dawson said, adding, “I, for one, would not be surprised to see him win again.”

Nor would most who saw him.

But how they perform from now on will determine whether McDowell and Oosthuizen are one-off’s or part of a deep and talented wave of international players.

GOLDENDALE, Wash. — Here in the high desert east of the Cascades, where towering windmills quietly whir overhead, skaters hurtle downhill along a ribbon of blacktop six at a time wearing helmets and motorcycle leathers, hay bales stacked along switchbacks for the inevitable wipeouts.

But in the garment district in Manhattan, it is a slightly tamer story. One day in the spring, Todd Brunengraber stepped from his office on West 39th Street. Hearing a distinct hum from newly repaved Seventh Avenue, he turned and watched a commuter on a supersize skateboard whiz by.

The board was similar to the type he built in woodshop while growing up, but with big, candy-colored wheels. Soon, Brunengraber, a 62-year-old grandfather who had not set foot on a board in more than 25 years, spent $50 for a lesson and joined a growing legion of longboarders.

This summer, he has been pushing to and from Penn Station, and each night after work cruising a hill on his Bay Shore, N.Y., street.

“It’s a rush to get on it,” he said.

Whether on a hair-raising rural road in the Pacific Northwest or in teeming Midtown traffic, longboards have become the fastest-growing segment in an otherwise sluggish skateboard market. In recent years, they have lured new participants to a pastime traditionally dominated by teenage boys and young men performing perilous stunts.

“There’s a real neo-hippie, everybody-welcome kind of vibe to longboarding,” said Adam Goldstein, 43, who skates with his 10-year-old son around Manhattan.

Goldstein, who directs commercials, says he takes a longboard to commute while working in Los Angeles or Toronto. “You can just go anywhere,” he said.

With decks usually 34 inches or longer; trucks (axles) adapted for easier turning; and big, soft wheels, longboards provide a smoother skating experience than boards designed for performing tricks. Their size and stability make longboards well suited for cruising streets and college campuses. The price of a good longboard starts at about $150.

“There’s no stigma,” said Larry Peterson, who made 2,500 boards in a dairy barn in Salem, Ore., last year under the brand Longboard Larry. “It’s one of the sports where someone who’s 40 can go skate with someone who’s 13 and nobody thinks it’s weird.”

With an inclusive, do-it-yourself ethic, longboarding has grown as a grass-roots movement mostly outside the established skateboard industry and spread from Southern California to places like Brooklyn and Bend, Ore.

Begun in a San Diego backyard in 1993 by a group of surfers, the longboard maker Sector 9 has led the way. In 2008, the surf apparel maker Billabong bought Sector 9. Sector 9 is part of an increasingly crowded market that 10 years ago was not much more than a scattered collection of small entrepreneurs.

While working at a skate shop in the 1990s, Brian Petrie began making longboards from broken snowboards out of his Brooklyn apartment. The result: Earthwing Skateboards. In 2002 a group of friends in Hagerstown, Md., began building longboards for themselves. By 2004, they moved to New York and settled in Brooklyn as Bustin Boards.

Zak Maytum, 19, a champion downhill and slalom skater on his longboard, began a business making wheels and bushings from his parents’ garage in Boulder, Colo., three years ago. Today, his company, Venom, employs two salespeople. “Every year is bigger than the last year,” he said.

A former professional street skater, Marcus Bandy is the team manager for Orangatang, a wheel company in Los Angeles that is popular with longboarders.

“It’s really all new,” Bandy, 37, said about the longboard culture. “It’s like when punk rock or hip-hop first came out. It’s a whole new thing, and the kids are loving it.”

He added: “People are always going to create their own stuff and that’s what’s happening here. These guys are creating skateboarding and reinventing skateboarding.”