OWGR - Week#39

Finally, the FedEx Cup is over! But OWGR doesn't care about those 10 millions, so I'll ignore all that...
Congratulation to Bill Haas for wining the Tour Champioship at East Lake this week ! His first win (in a 30-player field event, it has to be said) after one year (!) and the first top 10 in more than four months! But apparently that's well worth 10 million bucks! Anyway, with that he climbs into the top 20 in the rankings, for the first time in his carreer...

Tiger is droping only one place this week, to... #50!! Glad to see that in the end my prediction from a couple of month ago when I said that he should slip outside the top 50 around the first week in October is looking now to be a pretty good one... But there's no slowing down in Padraig's slide, he moves down to #84 after another unconvincing performance in Austria.
Talking about Austria, well done to Ken Ferrie for his win there, moving up after that right around the #200 mark (together with Tommy Fleetwood). And young Tom Lewis's great top 10 finish should get him up around the #600 mark.

Congratulation also to one of the very few Japanese members of the European Tour, Hiratsuka-san, who won a strong tournament in Japan (pretty close to his home, apparently)! He jumps up to #78 as a result.

And finally, well done to Sam Little for his 2nd consecutive win on the CT (moving into top 300) and a special mention to the runner-up, Simon Thornton from Ireland, who moves to #12 in the CT rankings and a step closer to securing his ET card for next year!

This is how the OWGR table should look after week #39:

1 Luke Donald
2 Lee Westwood
3 Rory McIlroy
4 Steve Stricker
5 Dustin Johnson
6 Martin Kaymer
7 Jason Day
8 Phil Mickelson
9 Adam Scott
10 Matt Kuchar
11 Nick Watney
12 Webb Simpson
13 Carl Schwartzel
14 K.J. Choi
15 Graeme McDowell
16 Bubba Watson
17 Justin Rose
18 Hunter Mahan
19 David Toms
20 Bill Haas
21 Ian Poulter
22 Kim Kyung-Tae
23 Paul Casey
24 Robert Karlsson
25 Jim Furyk
26 Brandt Snedeker
27 Keegan Bradley
28 Anders Hansen
29 Thomas Bjorn
30 Simon Dyson
31 Zach Johnson
32 Jason Dufner
33 Martin Laird
34 Francesco Molinari
35 Geoff Ogilvy
36 Bo Van Pelt
37 Rickie Fowler
38 Matteo Manassero
39 Darren Clarke
40 Retief Goosen
41 Alvaro Quiros
42 Gary Woodland
43 Y.E. Yang
44 Miguel Jimenez
45 Ernie Els
46 Ryo Ishikawa
47 Sergio Garcia
48 Ryan Moore
49 Aaron Baddeley
50 Tiger Woods
----------------------------
51 Jonathan Byrd
52 Louis Oosthuizen
53 Peter Hanson
54 Edoardo Molinari
55 Vijay Singh
56 Robert Allenby
57 Mark Wilson
58 Tim Clark
59 Fredrik Jacobsen
60 John Senden
61 Lucas Glover
62 Rory Sabbatini
63 Ryan Palmer
64 Charley Hoffman
65 Chez Reavie
66 Charles Howell III
67 Sean O'Hair
68 Yuta Ikeda
69 Scot Verplank
70 Camilo Villegas
71 Ben Crane
72 Alexander Noren
73 Ross Fisher
74 Richard Green
75 Bae Sang-Moon
76 Kevin Na
77 J.B. Holmes
78 Tetsuji Hiratsuka
79 Anthony Kim
80 Nicolas Colsaerts
81 Stephen Marino
82 Chris Kirk
83 Jeff Overton
84 Padraig Harrington
85 Hiroyuki Fujita
86 Brian Davis
87 Raphael Jacquelin
88 Robert Garrigus
89 Brendan Jones
90 Spencer Levin
91 Fredrik A. Hed
92 Pablo Larazabal
93 Tommy Gainey
94 Jamie Donaldson
95 Carl Petersson
96 D.A. Points
97 Davis Love III
98 Stewart Cink
99 George Coetzee
100 David Horsey
---------------------------
101 David Lynn
102 Brendan de Jonge
103 Joost Luiten
...

No Kenny Ferrie??????????

Now the points will start turning the European way.

Cheers kwini... Kenny Ferrie should end up somewhere around #200, as I said...

Andres Gonzales looks set to win on the Nationwide... that will bring him up around 450 places to ~#400...

A number of PGA Tour players will start to slide now unless they travel or have very good Fall Series finishes, Poulter, Casey and perhaps Harrington included.
Els will need good results the next two weeks or he'll chase Woods through the top fifty trap door.

I see that Steve Marino's plans to travel around the world a bit more didn't get to a good start... he appears to have pulled out from the Dunhil Links this week. Wagner and JJ Henry are still in...

Still, looking forward to a great tournament, should be worth probably around 54 owgr points or so... I wonder is DJ going to come with or without LaCava...?

pd,
I understand that Dustin is playing with his brother (Austin!!!!!!) this week and the plan was always that they would have a pair of mates over with them to caddie.

LaCava most likely to debut at the Fry's.com in ten days' time.

PS: Not sure he'll honour his commitment but Bill Haas is in the early declarations for this week in Las Vegas, along with Nick Watney and Martin Laird.

Am I the only one thinking that DJ's parents were un-original in naming their kids Dustin and Austin!

Do they have another brother called Justin?

Bill Haas has definitely withdrawn his "commitment" to play this week in Las Vegas.

kwinigolfer wrote:Do they have another brother called Justin?

I believe Austin is the eldest child and Dustin the youngest. In between, of course, are their siblings Bustin and Custin

Nice to see some of the americans coming over. I am predicting a great week for Harrington - just have a feeling......................

Don't understand why someone like Tiger wouldn't play this week when he needs events to get him moving in the right direction, especially with the last 5 weeks off..................he doesn't appear to have adjusted to his new status as World no 50.................................playing 14 or 15 times a year will not do anymore unless you are winning 5 or 6 times............................

Is Kevin Costner coming over this year?! or is he still not welcome at the Old Course Hotel??!!

Austin&Dustin... I seeee

Haven't heard anything about Costner, JC. They'll probably get Dermot Desmond instead...

Just a reminder that this week Paul Casey is supposed to play in Korea (almost feels like big news when Paul is playing somewhere these days)... Seems like a big event by Korean Tour standards, with no less than 3 of the top 25 ranked players taking part: KJ, KtK and Casey (Noh is there as well, plus a few dozens of other Kim's, etc). Not sure, but that should make it worth something like 16-18 owgr points with all the home points included, quite a distance from their regular tournaments which get usually just 6 points...

JC, the European Tour website has an article of the celebs playing.

pd,
The Fry's website states that Casey is committed for their .com tournament.
The final Field published Friday evening will make interesting evening, lots of falling stars scheduled to play, Els, Cabrera etc. And some guy who'll take time off from child care.

Looks like King Louis Oosty is now the main candidate to apply the leathal blow and knock Tiger off the top 50!
He needs to finish a top 10 on the links this week for that... So far so good for him...

Rors has only a theoretical chance to get to #2, but looks unlikely as Lee doesn't seem to be prepared to 'cooperate' in that plot...

Signs of life from Casey, McDowell and Oosthuizen almost simultaneously. Hoping Ernie Els might follow suit, but no sign yet. Kaymer and Westwood in neutral also.

I wonder if this will be Ryder Cup weekend next year? Dunhill presumably will be moved back a week.

Fantastic news!!!
Paul Casey just won the 27th Shinhan Donghae Open in Korea!

A birdie at the last hole gave him the outright win avoiding a play-off with KtK who scored today the best round of the week with a bogeyless 67.
Noh came 4th and KJ 5th, so in the end they seem to have a pretty exciting finish over there...

I'm thrilled for Casey, hope this'll get him back on track with his golf... Mind you, I remember Padraig got a similar kind of win about a year ago in SE Asia, but that wasn't enough to get him back on track...

I'll get back later with the owgr implications for Paul... but this may JUST be enough to lift him back up to the top 20!

And this means, looking at the confirmed field for next week's Frys.com in CA, that Casey will be the highest ranked player in that field. Oosty could come close to him if he wins today... otherwise, apart from Tiger and Ernie, nothing really of any notice... apart maybe from the very lovely Rory Sabbatini...

Tiger, Ernie, Casey, Oosty... up until a few days ago that would've sounded almost like a complete list of golf wreckages, but now there's finally some positive buzz about some of them...

That's a great result for Casey, prince; with his past six months aresting the slide is crucial. Hopefully he'll find the way to San Jose is equally rewarding this coming week.

I'm hoping that Watney can do the business in Nevada; and still trusting that Martin Laird can stabilise his ranking with a good round today (64?) and a top ten.

Thanks - I also share the sentiments about Mr Casey. I tried to work out what was going on in the Shinhan Donghae Open the other day, and found the website to be user unfriendly bordering on user hostile, at least to my Western upbringing (which left me thinking "isn't this tournament in the other Korea?").

At the moment Oosty is T8 and Hanson T6 and both would just overtake Tiger as it is... But if each drops only one shot from here, it could well be that neither of them will do it... So the conclusion of that particular plot is still very much in the air...

Lee is still safe from Rors right now, but if he drops a couple more......?!

So anyway... before any other owgr updating, the news is that Tiger will now be officially out of the top 50 when he tees off next Thursday in San Francisco!!!

Oosthuizen is the culprit who applied the final blow...