OWGR - Week #49

First topic message reminder :

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
...

As Weezer once sang "The world has turned and left me here."

Is that not as bigger fall from grace as Tiger? Though obviously for completely and entirely forgiveable reasons.

If ever a man was built for a green jacket it was Big Ern.

goldwolf wrote: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?

Harrington is still exempt because of his recent major wins, they'll get him into all of the majors in the next couple of years (after that he'll still be exempt for The Open and PGA championship, The Open until he's 60, the PGA, theoretically, for the rest of his life).

Agreed delToro,
I didn't actually see gw's question.

You know what, I totally forgot he had a PGA!

Thanks guys.

Good start for Poulter as he takes the early lead in the Australian Masters at 6 under par. Three more rounds like that and it's a good bet Poultie would win and re-enter the owgr top 20.
Typically understated stuff from Luke Donald: 16 pars and two birds on par fives.

Wow 11 under for Westwood today thru 16 in Thailand.

kwinigolfer wrote:Good start for Poulter as he takes the early lead in the Australian Masters at 6 under par. Three more rounds like that and it's a good bet Poultie would win and re-enter the owgr top 20.
Typically understated stuff from Luke Donald: 16 pars and two birds on par fives.

Poulter is a bit like a saffa in that his best form appears to take place in the early and late parts of a season.