OWGR - Week #49

It's not yet the end of the season, but it's hopefully the end of the silly season and the end of Tiger's winning drought.
Leaving aside the debate about those exhibition tournaments, it's great to see three of the top players in the game,Tiger, Rory and Lee, winning on the same week!
Let's take the events one by one:
- This week, finally, I get to mention Tiger in the winners section and not as a footnote... As I said, Casey's brilliant run over the last 3 rounds and his solo 3rd finish, means that Tiger climbes up only up to #21. No matter what, it's great to see him winning again, but personally, I'll be looking forward now to seeing how he will perform in a relly competitive, full field tournament, like the Abu Dhabi in a few weeks time...
- An amazing finish and a great win for Rory in HK, and with that he makes sure he remains in 2nd spot and is reducing the difference from #1 to just over 2 points... Havret's runner up place means a return of the Frenchman in the top 100 (#92) while another good finish from Richie Ramsay brings him ever so close to the top 100. As I said already, Hanson manages to move up in the top 50 (#49), but another missed opportunity for Quiros, who would need now a good result in Dubai to make sure he finishes above the critical top 50 line.
- Lee seems to be in full control when he is playing in Sun City, but despite his win he remains at #3 at a small difference behind Rory, but on the other hand he is building a gap of over one point from Kaymer at #4 (who is himself well over one point away from #5)
- Congratiulation also to Fujita-san who has won (yet another 54-hole tournamet in JP) the equivalent exhibition event in Japan, the Golf Nippon Series JT Cup, which basically includes only the top 28 players (available) from that tour. He moves up to #71 as a result. Toru Taniguchi (#61) and Ryo Ishikawa (#48) finished 2nd and 3rd.
A couple of minor tournaments have also taken place this week:
- Brad Kennedy won the New Zeeland Open (beating Craig Parry in a play-off) and that should lift him up to ~#146.
- Finally, there's the answer to my question from the previous owgr thread... Jose Coceres (remember him?) won the Torneo de Maestros Copa Personal in Argentina after being away from the game for almost two seasons I think. The former #16 in the world rankings played his first event in a very long time and after the first 3 rounds he was already 6 shots ahead of guys like Ricardo Gonzales and Andres Romero who came 2nd and 3rd. This will be one of the 11 tournaments included in the new Latin American Tour from next year. Coceres was outside the ranking system before this week (no points earned in the past 2 seasons), so this win and the 6 points earned should bring him inside again straight somewhere around #760...

The OWGR table after week #49 should look like this:

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

Only one of the top fifty is currently on the outside looking in at PGA Tour Q-School.

Something of a bonanza for Zach Johnson as well - is it possible that Chevron's two special invitations came 1st and 2nd?

There'll be a big change this coming week with "Dubai"; looking at your list, pd, I hope that it's a good week in store for Gonzo and Alvaro.

Who was the other old fart who mimicked Craig Parry?

This past week obviously shows how skewed these rankings can be (says Rory and 606v2) but it's illustrative of where the balance of power lies: Donald, McIlroy, Westwood, Kaymer.

Thanks princed.

Laird dropped 3 places after being 6th?

Superb stuff pd.

As kwini says, Dubai is gonna be the key to a lot of things - am I right in thinking there'll be no more OWGR-covered tournaments after it? Either way, it's gonna be crunch time for a lot of guys as far as Masters qualification goes. Most of the guys inside the line as things stand are already in to Augusta, through money and points lists from 2011 (Laird, Senden, Badds, Woodland), or else through a good finish in a 2011 major (Hanson at the US). Only guys who aren't yet in are Furyk (!! but can he still drop out?), and Ishikawa. But it's after that it gets interesting. Only Byrd and Wilson of 51-60 are already in, and that includes five guys who'll be teeing it up in Dubai. Chances are at least one of them will bump their way up, but will it be Augusta ever-presents Goosen and Els (not missed a Masters since 1999 and 1993 respectively), or will the two guys closest to the cutoff make their move? Or perhaps Manassero will find some form, or we could even see a guy from further down get a breakthrough win and surge up the rankings (Noren? Luiten?). Will be an interesting week...

Thanks kwini, Ned. It'll be a very interesting week, no doubt. The possibilities and permutation are endless for all these guys you've mentioned. Personally, I don't give a damn who wins the big RtD pot, the other details are much more interesting... Ned, after Dubai ther will be also the JBWere Masters down under, with a pretty strong field, including all the Aussie stars minus Scott, plus Luke, Poults and Matteo from what I know...

montyj, Laird was inside a group of players which were separated by only a few fractions of point, so with most people around him scoring things like that can happen... His problem is also that this was his first owgr sanctioned event in over two months, so he's been getting a bit thin on new points earned...

I see, thanks for the head's up prince

Last night I forgot to mention about the Thailand Golf Championship which will also take place next week in Bangkok, after Dubai, same as the JBWere Masters. It promisses to have a great field indeed, including:

RORY MCILROY
LEE WESTWOOD
CHARL SCHWARTZEL
SERGIO GARCIA
KIM KYUNG-TAE
SIMON DYSON
DARREN CLARKE
RYO ISHIKAWA
C. HOFFMAN
J. DONALDSON
T. FLEETWOOD
G. BOURDY
T. OLESEN
T. JAIDEE
J. MILKHA SINGH
T. HIRATSUKA
ETC...

...plus all the Asian Tour winners and local Thai stars, etc. Quite probably an even stronger field than the one in Australia. So the real end of the 2011 season will be after next week....

Good field.. Im guessing World Ranking points are available for that tournament.

Yes there are, it's one of the important tournaments on the Asian Tour... This year has seen a big change in many of these top Asian tournaments with lots of foreign superstars (with high OWGR ranks) being invited (not for free, you can be sure of that), raising not only the profiles and prize money for these events but also the number of owgr points available...As I was saying a while ago on 606, this is a trend that should benefit a lot the Asian golf in future and I think there are already signs of that happening. It's that sort of trend one would hope to see in future years in other parts as well, such as South America...

Tiger gets 44 points for beating 17 others, Westwood gets 38 points for beating 11 others and Rory gets 38 points for beating an entire field.

I accept there were far fewer top players in Hong Kong, but those that were there were still plying their season out while a few players at the other events seemed to have already started their Xmas holiday.

Amazing wins for all. Tiger could not have scripted his finnish any better to carry the maximum confidence into 2012. He had a small lead on the back 9 but Zach got ahead due his good play rather than Tiger letting the lead slip then he birdies the last two holes to win. His approach into 18 with Zach already sitting about 15 feet was class.

I think we are in for some great golf in 2012 starting with the Dessert Swing and finnishing with the Ryder Cup. Bring it on.

I agree with you, Scottie. OWGR points should only be available for tournaments where there is a cut - not these silly "exhibition" tournaments. Rory's efforts were worth far more ponts than those of Woods. How do we know he didn't pay all the other 17competitors to let him win his own event?

I have no problem with World Ranking Points for these events, it's the quantity of them i have the problem with.

44 for Tiger, 38 for Westwood....................Darren Clarke got 2.4 points for finishing last...............

Chevron should only be allowed award points for, say, the Top 10 and Nedbank for the Top 6..................these points have to be earned.........

It should be relative to the number of competitors.

The number of points on offer at Chevron and Nedbank was outrageous.

Here's a question for you OWGR officionados. If Rory wins this week and then in Thailand, can he get to No.1?

SmithersJones wrote:Here's a question for you OWGR officionados. If Rory wins this week and then in Thailand, can he get to No.1?

No owgr officionados here SJ, but to answer your question... NO! But it would come pretty close if Luke wouldn't score any points in Dubai and in Oz...

Interestingly though, in similar circumtances, Lee can...!

princedracula wrote:

SmithersJones wrote:Here's a question for you OWGR officionados. If Rory wins this week and then in Thailand, can he get to No.1?

No owgr officionados here SJ, but to answer your question... NO! But it would come pretty close if Luke wouldn't score any points in Dubai and in Oz...

Interestingly though, in similar circumtances, Lee can...!

If you're not an officionado, pd, I don't know what is! Thanks for that, would be an interesting twist if Westy did pull that off!

Early count suggests Dubai will be worth 58 owgr pts to the winner (same as last year)...

...and according to the European Tour website, Rory can win the RtoD with a win if Luke finishes outside the top 9.

princedracula wrote:Early count suggests Dubai will be worth 58 owgr pts to the winner (same as last year)...

...and according to the European Tour website, Rory can win the RtoD with a win if Luke finishes outside the top 9.

How on earth does Chevron/Nedbank get 44/38 points and the European Tour climax event gets 58? Theres something seriously wrong there.

pgatour.com (of all places), says that if Luke is 9th on his own and Rory wins, Luke will still just stay on top. If it's a share of ninth, he gets overhauled. Apparently a two-way tie would mean Rory won by 5 euros!

Can Rory win R2D if he finishes 2nd (or worse)?

God I hope Luke wins.

McIlroy will need an additional caddy to help carry his head around the course it will be so big, if he wins.

Gareth - I think everyone around here and many more everywhere else agree with the fact that there is something wrong with the share of owgr points that Chevron/Nedbank are getting. I saw Doug Ferguson amongst others beeing 'assaulted' apparently on twitter with loads of messages of complaint on that issue and replying rather desperately at some point: ..."Both cases, we can yell all we want, nothing changes"
But to me there is a positive aspect to all this: this year due to the significant rise in profile of the OWGR points system over the last year or so (since it became obvious that Tiger will lose his no. 1 status) people at least have become much more aware and sensitive to these issues and they are making their concerns publicly heard, so hopefully the 'system' behind the OWGR system, as I was calling it, will start to take some notice in future. Don't hold your breath though...

Ned - I think they should have a rule whereas they call it a tie if the difference is less than a tenner!

Davie - No chance for Rory to win RtD other than a win this week...

JPX - I like Luke as well, so I don't really mind if they get into the situation I was suggesting to Ned, and they share it...

Hmmmm - with reports that Coco is under the weather this week with some sort of virus it looks even better for Luke then. Hopefully he can do it in style though

Phah. He's just getting his excuses in, Davie!

Interesting to note the amount of Tiger's points are from two tournaments:
2010 Chevron
2011 Chevron

If not for the contributions from Chevron, Woods would be about 63rd in the World.

Steve Elkington has tweeted a most apropos cartoon which I'm not sure how to link. But go to note 10). of this Quick 18 and you'll find it!

http://www.pgatour.com/2011/r/12/05/quick-18/index.html

That cartoon is excellent... Shocking stat about Woods ranking if it wasnt for the chevron tournament.

I think the fact that Luke has such a massive lead having only played 12 counting events means it's only fitting that he should hold on this week. Such dominance in almost every event he has played.

I like JPX fear how arrogantly Rory would react to snatching it at the last. He's really done his image absolutely no favours ever since he holed out on the 18th green at Congressional.

ESMD wrote:I like JPX fear how arrogantly Rory would react to snatching it at the last. He's really done his image absolutely no favours ever since he holed out on the 18th green at Congressional.

Yea, I mean how dare he hole his bunker shot on the 18th at the Hong Kong Open last week

Gareth_NI wrote:

ESMD wrote:I like JPX fear how arrogantly Rory would react to snatching it at the last. He's really done his image absolutely no favours ever since he holed out on the 18th green at Congressional.

Yea, I mean how dare he hole his bunker shot on the 18th at the Hong Kong Open last week

He's still a great golfer to watch but he doesn't half talk rubbish and is swiftly disappearing up his own a**e. Something I didn't think he would do after the US Open win, which I was really happy about btw.

ESMD wrote:I think the fact that Luke has such a massive lead having only played 12 counting events means it's only fitting that he should hold on this week. Such dominance in almost every event he has played.

I like JPX fear how arrogantly Rory would react to snatching it at the last. He's really done his image absolutely no favours ever since he holed out on the 18th green at Congressional.

While i agree that Donald is a worthy World No 1, i would disagree with the "such dominance" assertion. If Donald is still in the Top 3 in the World Rankings this time next year i will be surprised......................

WHy would you be surprised? He's a country mile ahead of anyone in terms of consistency and points already accrued. It will take a monumental effort by several players just to get close to him.
Even if he has a year as ordinary as Woods 2011, he'll still be very near the top.

John Cregan wrote:

ESMD wrote:I think the fact that Luke has such a massive lead having only played 12 counting events means it's only fitting that he should hold on this week. Such dominance in almost every event he has played.

I like JPX fear how arrogantly Rory would react to snatching it at the last. He's really done his image absolutely no favours ever since he holed out on the 18th green at Congressional.

While i agree that Donald is a worthy World No 1, i would disagree with the "such dominance" assertion. If Donald is still in the Top 3 in the World Rankings this time next year i will be surprised......................

I'd say 3 wins in 12 European tour events whilst only coming outside the top 11 twice is a fairly dominant season. To be £700,000 odd ahead of McIlroy having played six fewer events with Rory winning a major and another tour event is a pretty stunning statistic.

John

Who do you see going above donald in the rankings?


The only people currently in the top ten who I see getting above donald are kaymer and mcilroy. It would be westwood who I would predict going backwards as well as the americans.

Do you see tiger getting back in the top 3?

I think McIlroy will be No 1 in December 2012............I think Tiger could well be Top 5 by then as well .............If Westwood can find his putting then he will surely remain in the Top 3 and the big problem with Kaymer is his inconsistency..........

SR/ESMD, im not having a go at Donald at all, he's been superb. i just don't think he will be in the Top 3 this time next year. It's just a prediction..............

pd,
The AP is reporting a slight modification to the owgr calculations for limited field events next year.
" . . . . tournaments that have fewer than thirty players . . . . will no longer get the "home tour" rating component."
That small adjustment must affect the E.T's MatchPlay tournament, as well as Nedbank and the tournament-once-known-as-Chevron.
Maybe one or two others?

"slight modification" - i wonder what that means 42 points for the winner instrad of 44 ????

I hope they decide to give Zero for those in the bottom half...............

John,
In this past week's case, the Nedbank would have been unaffected and the Chevron would have seen 40, rather than 44, points to the winner. By the AP's calculations, that would have repositioned Mr.Woods to #25 in the owgr's instead of #21.

Davie wrote:Hmmmm - with reports that Coco is under the weather this week with some sort of virus it looks even better for Luke then. Hopefully he can do it in style though

he has had that Virus for about an month.... oh and he won twice in that month ... "Beware the injured golfer!!"

kwinigolfer wrote:Interesting to note the amount of Tiger's points are from two tournaments:
2010 Chevron
2011 Chevron

If not for the contributions from Chevron, Woods would be about 63rd in the World.

http://www.pgatour.com/2011/r/12/05/quick-18/index.html

If Woods' denominator was the actual number of tournaments he has played over 2 years rather than 40 he would be in the top 10!! It's all ifs and buts

Very true, but Tours stipulate minimum requirements for their members, and one of the reasons for the "minimum" is to reduce the amount of tournament cherry-picking players are permitted to do.
Doesn't really work in Tiger's case, of course.

pd,
Karlsson earned 58 pts with his Dubai win last year. Is it safe to assume it'll be in the 56 - 60 range again this week? Perhaps Quiros can break the top 50 barrier this week.

PS: Were you trying to alert me to Coceres's win last week? Great to see that, always liked watching him play. Forgotten man these past few years.

Big ?:
Does Quiros reach the Top Twenty, as Goilf Channel insist, or is he fractionally behind Bubba still?

Interesting point about Tiger and the fact that his divisor (40) means he'll rocket up the rankings with a good win:
But, because no events are deducted from his divisor, he'll lose points every week he doesn't play without any reduction to his divisor.
So he'll slip in the rankings until he can be bothered to lace up his golf shoes again.
Like this week!

I hope our Irish/Transylvanian friend will confirm, but I note that ET website says Quiros will be #21 (not that they are foolproof, mind you).

http://www.europeantour.com/europeantour/season=2011/tournamentid=2011091/news/newsid=151472.html#quiros+king+earth+course

I recall watching Quiros play at Wentworth earlier in the year. Didn't see him hit the driver (although like myself, I overheard other members of the crowd speculating and hoping), but he reminds us with his cheery disposition that it's just a game and meant to be fun. I also now remember being a bit startled at seeing him basically sprinting towards but then past me after he had played the [9th?] before his playing partners had finished up. Something else I learned from that day which you don't see on TV was how often these pros run off into the trees/bushes...

Very impressive from Luke as well of course. I still don't think he will win the BBC SPOTY... but he's got more chance than Amir Khan...

I see McIlroy has officially w/d'd from the Thailand tournament this week.
Wonder if that event is fully sanctioned and attracts owgr points?

Aussie Masters definitely is and does - sounds like Ogilvy is spoiling for a confrontation with Allenby. Hope something happens to defuse that before things become ugly.

Not to steal the thunder of our "Irish / Transylvanian friend" but the owgr's confirm Quiros at #21, from #52.
Peter Hanson now securely in the top 50 (and three Majors) for year's end, while Clarke, Laird and Furyk could drop out during the coming week or so. (Not sure when the year-end cut-off is, but presumably on Dec 26th. ?)
Paul Lawrie up from #163 to #87, just behind the triumvirate of Harrington, Clark and Camilo.
Mickelson now at #14, Schwartzel just about to return to the Top Ten.

Just noticed Ross Fisher has dropped to 98, he's a had a pretty poor 2011, and will struggle to make the Ryder Cup team at this rate. It's amazing how quick form can turn on it's head.

Hi gw, Welcome back!
Had to smile at Mick McC's remarks fpollowing the game on Saturday . . . .
Staffs Derby on Sunday, against a team some of whom will be recovering from Turkey, and not the seasonal poultry version.

Fisher one of a number of favourites who are dropping like a stone.

pgatour.com has just issued a comprehensive interim list of Major and WGC exemptions for 2012. Surprising some of the omissions as things currently stand, starting with Els and Goosen from The Masters. Fisher is in The Masters but no exemption yet into either Open.

Thanks kwini. Yeah I had hoped I wouldn't be saying this, this early in the season, but the next two at home, Stoke and Norwich, are must win games for us. Has to be said though not easy games at all, both seem to be flying.

Is Harrington in The Masters?

No Ernie in the Masters? Say it isn't so, Joe (Kwini).

What does he have to do to get an invite?

I guess there's always the SA tournaments to get him back in the top 50, I stay calm for now.

Hibbz,
I think that's it; his only ways in now are a Tour win or reaching the owgr top fifty, either at year's end or as at March 26th 2012. He's not in the US Open either!