OWGR - Week #8

Congratulations to Hunter Mahan, the first WGC winner in 2012! Gutted that Rory lost it, but to be fair, Mahan has been very impressive all week, so a deserved winner in the end. Well done to Mark Wilson and Lee Westwood as well for making the semifinals.
So... Hunter jumps straight to #9 in the world, knocking Phil out of the top 10 again, while Mark Wilson continues to climb up the rankings, now at #24. Rory and Lee remain where they were, but there is now a huge gap building up between the top 3 and the rest (over 2 points).

Congratulations also to the other winners this week:
- John Huh winning at Mayakoba, Mexico, after an endless play-off with Robert Allenby. Huh should move somewhere around #140
- Keith Horne winning the Telkom PGA Champ in South Africa (moves up to around #190)
- Anirban Lahiri (India) winner of the SAIL Open in India (moves close to #230)

So, Rory and Lee's quest to reach #1 in the world is postponed for another week, as once again each of them would need a win at the Honda Classic in Florida to finally knock Luke off the #1 spot.

The OWGR tablr after week #8 should look like this:

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

pd Wherever you are!

A bad spell for the Europeans/Internationals unless they play very well in the U.S.A.

But, still, must have been a shock to Poulter's system, for instance, to see Peter Hanson glide by him. And assume he'll pass Casey next week.

Predict the next month will be kind to the South Africaaaaans, and I'm not talking about Keith Horne.

If only govt forecasts for the economy were as speedy and accurate!!!!!

I don't subscribe to the thinking that McIlroy will take the No 1 spot in the next few weeks and keep it for a long long time. Still too many loose shots in his locker. What's for sure though is that i don't see an American taking the spot in 2012. Donald, Kaymer, McIlroy & Westwood could all spnnd some weeks of 2012 with the No 1 spot......................

It looks like Rory will fall a fraction of point short of the #1 ranking if he finishes solo 2nd this week at Honda. I think Honda will have 54 points to the winner (and he would need it to be a 56 pointer).

Things are tight at the bottom of the top 10. Less than two tenths of a point separates #6 Webb Simpson (5.14) and #11 Phil Mickelson (4.96) so you would think there might be a lot of volatility potential this week. Well there might have been if any of them was playing this week.

There should be a lot of changes in the bottom of the top ten at Cadillac. Charl (5th), GMac, (2nd) and Keegan (1st) could crash the top 10 party going into Cadillac.

Cheers guys. Not a lot of time to get on the net over the next couple of days...

A few points on what JC says about Rory... if (more like when) Rory gets to no. 1 my concern in relation to his ability to stay there for a long time would be more related to how much he will remain focused and determined as he appears to be now, rather than with his amount of loose shots (and it can always be a connection between those two things).

We should remember that in his last 11 events (last 5 months) he finished 8 times in the top 3, and the other were a T4, a T5 and a T11!! And I agree with one thing, it looked like he had quite a few loose shots in most of these events... But as he gets to #1 and if he continues to have 3 quarters of his finishes in the top 3, it will be just impossible to lose that position. The only possibility for that to happen would be to have a Tiger-like opponent who's actually winning most of these events where he's finishing top 3. Can't see right now who could fill in that position... So it'll take something more than those loose shots we see at the moment to keep him away from that spot if/when he gets there.

And before I run away again, I just saw somewhere an interesting stat from last week. It's the GIR stat for the top 4 guys:
- Westwood 78%
- Wilson 72.16%
- Rory 69.31%
- Mahan 66.67%
i.e. exactly the opposite to the order they finished...which would suggest that putting is still king! And from what I saw, I thought that was indeed the outstanding element in Hunter's game last week (all very solid otherwise).

GPB, as I said last night they both (Lee and Rory) need wins this week for that... And btw, I had a quick look at Els also last night and it's pretty clear he'll need to win also to make the top 50 for sure for Doral....

Early count for Honda suggest 50-52 pts (54 last year)

With Goosen's w/d looks more like 50 than 52 right now, but I'll confirm it later in the week.
Problem is that at 50 points, Lee can't catch Luke, so only Rory could get to #1 with a win...

McIlroy, Westwood and Wilson all playing; imagine they'd all prefer a week off. Don't expect much from any of them. But that's what I thought last week too!
Nice to see we were correct about Goosen making the Cadillac field.

kwini

Would you not hope that they can cope playing two weeks in row?


Prince

It really is very cool that you get this stuff out way before the big new agencies and the OWGR people themselves. I sort of feel ahead of the game after reading this weekly post.

As to the GIR stats does that not pretty much tell the story of westwood most weeks, sadly.

It was a little hard to tell who was playing well other than Mahan last week so might have to wait and see what kwini's article has to say before I decide who might pick up the 50 points.

Mac,
Agreed but the travel and time difference also factors in. Not making excuses, just saying!

To be fair, i cannot function after my 20 minute walk to work without a coffee on arrival.

Is florida as bad as it looks?

Great stuff Pd! Interesting re the GIR stats. I think, from what can be seen on tv, a lot of the time you are better down in the run off areas than being on some sections of the greens. Also made me wonder why so many of them attacked the par5s (and driveable par4s) under regulation. I think the lack of medium to long putts holed might be one of the reasons the pros dont like that place.

I see Woodland drifting out the top 50. Wonder when all the work with Butch will pay off?
McDowell will have to pick up his game soon will he not? That US Open nearly two years ago now.

McLaren wrote:To be fair, i cannot function after my 20 minute walk to work without a coffee on arrival.

Is florida as bad as it looks?

What's not to like about a golf course with a mickey mouse shaped bunker?

pd,
I see Vijay Singh has also withdrawn from the "Honda"; presumably that assists the drop to 50 pts for the winner?

Mac - Parts of Florida exceptional, other parts strip mall central. One size certainly does not fit all.

I expect plenty from McIlroy this week. I would not be surprised with a Congressional-like effort. (This may be the only time I've ever used Congressional-like effort in a positive light.)

Tiger and O'Hair the bigger question marks in my mind.

I'm thinking a Top Twenty would be a good result from Rors this week . . . . Not much better from lw1 or Tigger.

Time for the Tour's "B" Team to flourish, and sadly that includes SO'H. But he has as many wins as Mahan, and one more than Bubba, Kooch and Sneds, so not all bad by any means!

I always imagined sean O’Hair was doing a little better than he actually is, wrongly assuming he went about is business quietly but remained in the top 50 with the odd win (2011 canadian open for example). So wrong, from being in the top 20 OWGR in July 2010 he has plummeted. He left the top 50 after last years northern trust open and went all the way to 114 before his Canadian open win returned him to 60. A position he seems to have been sliding down from more often than not to his current spot at 77.

Would be interesting to know what the foley effect was in all this?

Mac - Good question. I tend to take all the coaching influences with a large grain of salt. I'm inclined to think it's a lot less about technique and a lot more about instilling confidence. The difference in ability in many of these professionals is razor thin.

Butch Harmon, Sean Foley, Haney -- all seem to have hot golfers and others who've gone cold.

O'Hair still carving out a fine living, but from a personal standpoint I would really like to see him have even more success this year. Pretty solid start, but I'm hoping it's a springboard.

Geat stuff PD. ahead of everyone as always. interesting to see Rob Hodgetts of the beeb tweet about this today. i wonder if he is lurking on the boards here....


Any view on the potential movements around the top 50 ahead of the final cut for the masters? What do you reckon is safe and who still has a chance? Can Robert Rock make it for example?

Thanks guys!

Picking up on a few points there...

kwini, the Honda field is worth 50 pts for sure.
Lairdy, couldn't quite understand why a lot of tv experts were singling out Woodland at the begining of the year as the one to watch this season. If anything, he seems to be getting worse... but who knows...

About GMac and Florida (put them together), I wonder was there any European who's carreer moved clearly upwords (in terms of results, not so much money wise) after they went to live in Florida?

Don't have too much to say on O'Hair, other than the fact that consistency doesn't seem to be one of his strengths lately.

Caito, I would delay any meaningful predictions on the top 50 for the Masters until after Doral as that will very likely shake the ranks quite a bit. However, Rock will have to get a good result at Doral, because I'm not sure if he gets any other real opportunity to collect some decent owgr points to move inside the top 50. Don't know if he could get into the Transitions or Bay Hill events, and on the ET there are only a couple of B-list events left before the Masters, which he would have to win in order to give him any significant boost in the rankings...

Not to make excuses for Woodland, who is a player I've never really warmed to.
But he had a string of top class results last year culminating in the World Cup win with Kuchar.
But he changed management companies (did he go to the same outfit as Rory and McDo?), possibly on Kuchar's advice, and as a result his swing coach "fired" him as he, Rick Smith, is the father of the jilted agent, possibility of conflict of interest.

He then hooked up with Butch Harmon and there's been a dearth of positive results.

Doubt Woodland is gone to Horizon. They are still a relatively small Dublin outfit........................

Tiger has a chance to get back ahead of Mahan at #9 with a win at Honda.
Schwartzel (to #5) and GMac (to #9) the only other two with a chance to jump into the top 10 if they win this week...

Tragically, even a win wouldn't be enough to get Padraig into the top 50...

P.S. Woodland joined Steinberg's stable

John,
You're right of course!
He laft Hambric to join Mark Steinberg at Excel Sports Management. Same outfit as Woods.

Talking about the Masters, glad to see Matteo determined to try and get there... he's playing in both the Andalucia Open and in Marocco. I'm sure he would have preferred to have the Sicillian Open before Marocco...

How many amateurs at the Masters this year - 6 or 7 ??
Meanwhile, top pros between No's 51 - 80 in the World are watching it on TV.......................

Shocked how they failed to 'draw' Rory and Lee together in 1st round at Honda...

lee/woods/poults
rory/bradley/stanley
podge with DC

Is the owgr affected by IJP's w/d?

Nope, still 50 pts...

kwini, you reminded me I haven't visited this thread for a while...

Indeed, English could jump as high as #69 with a win, but I'd prefer if he would settle this week just for a solo 2nd, which could be enough to bring him just inside the top 100...

One of the 'quiet' beneficiaries of this week would be Jason Day, who looks set to move up from #10 to #7 without having to lift a club...

Ah... and Rory would become #1 with a win !!!