OWGR - Week #28

Not the most straightforward conclusion to this week's main events, with three out of the four main tournaments being decided in playoffs. Congratulations anyway, to Jeev Milkha Singh of India and to Zach Johnson of USA, the deserving winners in the end (both after playoffs) of the Scottish Open and the John Deere Classic, respectively. It's been Jeev's first win since 2008 and it will propel him more than 100 places, back inside the top 100, to #87. For Zach Johnson, this is the second win of the season, and the results of that are begining to show, jumping up right below the top 10 in the world at #11. This has been the second consecutive runner up place for Francesco Molinari, who continues his impressive climb up the ranks, reaching now #22. Hard luck to Troy Matteson, runner up in Illinois after he led virtually all week, but he'll enjoy a significant jump of ~160 places to somewhere around #210. And as we say welcome to the top 100 (at #99) to Scott Piercy following his 3rd place at JD Classic, we may well have to wish farewell very soon to the trio of Jeff Overton, Sean O'Hair and Robert Allenby...

And finally, an American called LaBelle (Doug) and a Frenchman called Gary (Stal) have won the Web.com Tour event in Utah and the CT event in Switzerland (following another play-off), moving up somewhere around the #430 and #280 spots, respectively. According to the ET oracle at least, the 20-year old Stal could be the next big thing on the European Tour, winning now his second event in the last two months in his first year on the tour, so I guess we shall watch this space...

The OWGR table after week #28 should look like this:

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

These rankings are so fickle!
Hardly anyone from #19 thru the mid-30's (Molinari and Fowler, Van Pelt and Furyk maybe) have done enough to warrant their places these past three months, but they won't be dislodged.
Casey and though are in freefall.

Lucky Zach and he's close to clinching his Ryder Cup place.
While Garcia, Hanson and Kaymer will get dislodged unless they can come up with the goods this next month.

Still hopeful that Overton and O'Hair can weather the storm, the dreaded and :video games: respectively have perhaps derailed them. Temporarily of course.

Hunter Mahan, believe it or not, is the US Ryder Cup team's bubble boy. Perhaps he'll have to break the World record for most Captain's picks for Ryder/Presidents Cup Teams!

Cheers pd, always good to know you're up figuring these things out.

you say that kwini- but the fact is that top 20 looks spot on

Cheers, kwini.

Some updated Open projections:

- if Woods wins and Luke finishes worse than solo 3rd, he WILL move back to #1 (regardless of what Rory &Lee will do)
- Westwood could go to #1 if he wins and Luke finishes worse than in a 2-way tie for 3rd
- Rory needs at least a 2-way tie for 2nd to have a chance to move to #1 (needs Luke to miss the cut in this case, and of course, Tiger or Lee not to win)
- if Rory finishes solo 2nd, he will move to #1 if Luke finishes worse than in a 2-way tie for 12th (if Tiger or Lee don't win)
- if Rory wins it, he will be #1 if Luke doesn't finish solo 2nd.
- Bubba and Dufner can reach #3 win win and no one else below them can reach the top 4
- anyone from #32 (Furyk) up could reach the top 10 with a win.
- Padraig can climb as high as #23 with a win...

P.S. And the Mississippi thingy should be worth 24 pts...

Very surprising to read that Mahan's a bubble boy. How many wins has he had during the counting period for RC? Would certainly get a pick in my eyes. Pair him up with Zacher and watch 'em go.

Cheers for the update Princed!

mysti,
Not criticising the rankings at all, just noting that a lot of these guys are resting on outdated laurels and there'll be some big changes soon!

Lairdy,
US Team currently:
Watson, Dufner, Woods, Simpson, ZJohnson, Mickelson, Kuchar, Mahan.
Plus 4.
9-12 are: Bradley, Fowler, Stricker, D.Johnson.

Here's the updated list of top 50 owgr points earners in 2012 before the Open:

1 Tiger Woods
2 Rory McIlroy
3 Bubba Watson
4 Luke Donald
5 Justin Rose
6 Zach Johnson
7 Hunter Mahan
8 Jason Dufner
9 Lee Westwood
10 Webb Simpson
11 Matt Kuchar
12 Louis Oosthuizen
13 Graeme McDowell
14 Francesco Molinari
15 Phil Mickelson
16 Rickie Fowler
17 Paul Lawrie
18 Carl Pettersson
19 Branden Grace
20 Jim Furyk
21 Nicolas Colsaerts
22 Peter Hanson
23 Ernie Els
24 Bo Van Pelt
25 Rafael Cabrerra-Bello
26 Marcel Siem
27 Bill Haas
28 Johnson Wagner
29 Kyle Stanley
30 Steve Stricker
31 Martin Laird
32 Keegan Bradley
33 Brandt Snedeker
34 Mark Wilson
35 Kevin Na
36 Robert Rock
37 Ben Curtis
38 John Huh
39 Ian Poulter
40 Dustin Johnson
41 Padraig Harrington
42 Robert Garrigus
43 Michael Thompson
44 Sergio Garcia
45 John Senden
46 Mark Leishman
47 Ben Crane
48 Charl Schwartzel
49 Jonathan Byrd
50 Jeev Milkha Singh
...

No Australians in the top forty, pd.
Baddeley, Day, Ogilvy, Scott . . . . . all awol

Thanks as always for this, pd.

Did I see a sneaky twitter plug for your work from Mr Ferguson earlier in the week?

"Amazing math" - that can only be pd . . . . . . .

Moi? Must be my undead cousin, nosferatu...

Just remembered that after this week there's a first top 50 cutline for Bridgestone Invitational... and then another one the week after...

Re: Bridgestone:
Only players not already qualified I see at risk of dropping out of the OWGR Top 50 are:
Byrd (47)
Na (49).

Of those ranked 51 - 65, these are not yet qualified:
Hansen (52)
Karlsson (54)
Thompson (56)
Harrington (59)
Manassero (64)

Anyone else needs a stonking finish or two, this week or next.

Problem for Matteo is that I can't see where he could play before the USPGA, so Bridgestone looks to be out for him... Thompson still has Canada (if he's going to play there)...

Agree pd, Open or bust for almost all of them . . . . . . . Matteo should book himself a really nice holday.

Has Harrington qualified for Bridgestone?

Not yet, benson, for some reason I left him out.
Edit coming up!

Oh right, hopefully he will take care of business this week, Ryder Cup and Ranking wise!!

You want Harrington in the Ryder Cup?

Being a Harrington fan, yes!

Despite him being garbage in the Ryder Cup you'd like to see him there?

It is the biggest tournament outside the majors so of course I would.

I wouldn't want a favourite of mine to be in the Ryder Cup if they consistently stunk the place out in it. I would want the team to be it's strongest and I don't think Harrington helps that with his poor record.

He's played six Ryder Cups. He had as good a record as anyone after the first three. 2006 & 2008 were poor while he had a 50% record in 2010.

If Luke Donald plays poorly in this year's event and again in 2014, should we say that he has always played poorly in the Ryder Cup? Based on the comments above, we probably should.

9 wins, 13 losses, 3 halves. Not great really, not terrible either but I'd prefer him not to be there.

No point talking about conjecture. Donald, Westwood, Poulter and Garcia have great Ryder Cup records, no point in talking about "what-if's" for them. Until they've got comparably poor records as Harrington it's a pointless argument.

Its all a bit of a lottery anyway, you only completely control your destiny in the singles.

My point is that you're not comparing like with like. Harrington has played six Ryder Cups, Donald three. The more you play, the more likely you are to have one or two bad ones. If you compare Harrington's first three against Donald's three, you would be comparing the same thing. Donald's points total is only 1.5 points greater from what I can see.

Diggers wrote:Its all a bit of a lottery anyway, you only completely control your destiny in the singles.

Being Matchplay, you don't even completely control your own destiny in singles. One player could be +4 and win while another could be -6 and lose. All anyone will remember is who won or lost.

Tinmar - i think you are dumbing down matchplay abit- you are correct to a certain extent but its not the only issue.

Matchplay is only about beating your opponent. the better the matchplay golfer the better his record will be.

One player could be plus 4 and win- but he may have had 10 birdies theoritically

I'm not disputing that at all. I'm just saying that if one match finished with one player -7 & the other player -6 and another game finished +4 to +5, it is surely very likely that the -6 player would have beaten the +4 player if he had been lucky enough to play against him.

Take the WGC Matchplay in February. Without doubt, the best player for the week will be champion at the end. However, I wouldn't accept that the 32 players who qualified for the 2nd round were the best 32 players that week. It's not like a cut in strokeplay where you can definitively say that anyone who makes the cut has beaten 50% of the field for that week.

Tinmar wrote:I'm not disputing that at all. I'm just saying that if one match finished with one player -7 & the other player -6 and another game finished +4 to +5, it is surely very likely that the -6 player would have beaten the +4 player if he had been lucky enough to play against him.

Take the WGC Matchplay in February. Without doubt, the best player for the week will be champion at the end. However, I wouldn't accept that the 32 players who qualified for the 2nd round were the best 32 players that week. It's not like a cut in strokeplay where you can definitively say that anyone who makes the cut has beaten 50% of the field for that week.

True to an extent ...however...in strokeplay you might get a really raw deal with the weather compared to someone who makes the cut getting a calm few hours. At least in matchplay the weather conditions are identical for both players.

yeah both good points. Lets be clear though match play is a very different skill. No one is gonna go for an eagle when a par will win them the hole, and everyone will go for an eagle when they need to - which could bring a double into play.

the player that shot a 4 over and won could have still theoritically shot a 4 under to beat someone else at the same time

True Oakey, what really annoys me when people talk about Ryder Cup is how people mention how one team has fewer majors than another.

As if that makes a difference. The best players of the last decade have NO majors between them, it's a total irrelevance, another example of people being incapable of separating strokeplay from matchplay.

True enough Super, lets face it matchplay is just a bit of novelty fun for the pros.

Ian Poulter is likely to need a wild card pick this year. On form at the moment, it would be debatable as to whether he deserves it. However, based on recent Ryder Cup history, he would have to be the first choice.

Given the sort of form and attitude he brings to the Ryder Cup, it's hard to understand why he tends to completely disappear for long stretches each year.

Id be happy if he would just disappear completely for the year. But no doubt he will be there riding the Ryder Cup glory train.

If he is "riding the train" Digs I'm sure it will be because he's one of the players who deserves the glory. He's never been a passenger on the team, more one of the spearheads.

More like a richard head than a spearhead.

ha ha. Very good. Actually smiled at that.
I wouldn't be surprised to see him have a good Open actually.

Yeah seems to have found a bit of form so quite possible. Maybe a reasonable bet for a top 10 finish.

If you could combine him and Westwood you'd have a hell of a player.

Westwood and anyone who can putt would be a hell of a player.

Diggers wrote:Westwood and anyone who can putt would be a hell of a player.

Before we get all excited about Ian Poulter's Ryder Cup excellence, I always keep in mind 99% of all professional golf is medal play, so he has to be good (excellent even) at that to get a chance at RC Match Play. Here are some fun RC facts:

Most Matches Won Europe:
Faldo - 23
Langer - 21
Seve - 20
Monty - 20
Olazabal - 18

Most Matches Won USA:
Palmer - 22
Casper 20
Wadkins - 20
Nicklaus - 17
Trevino - 17

Most Matches Lost Europe
Coles - 21
O'Connor Sr. - 21
Faldo - 19
Hunt - 16
Allis - 15

Most Matches Lost USA
Mickelson - 17
Floyd - 16
Furyk - 15
Woods - 14
Love - 12

Best Winning Percentages Europe
Minimum 5 Matches Played
Donald, 8-2-1, .773
Poulter, 8-3-0, .727
Way, 6-2-1, .722
Lawrie, 3-1-1, .700
Garcia, 14-6-4 .667

Best Winning Percentages USA
Minimum 5 Matches Played
Demaret, 6-0-0, 1.000
Dickinson, 9-1-0, .900
Burke Jr. 7-1-0, .875
Hagen, 7-1-1, .833
Souchak, 5-1-0, .833

And Finally, this ....

Records of All Players With Minimum 15 Matches Played

Arnold Palmer, USA, 22-8-2, .719
Hale Irwin, USA, 13-5-2, .700
Tom Watson, USA, 10-4-1, .700
Julius Boros, USA, 9-3-4, .688
Lee Trevino, USA, 17-7-6, .667
Gene Littler, USA, 14-5-8, .667
Sergio Garcia, Europe, 14-6-4 .667
Jack Nicklaus, USA, 17-8-3, .661
Jose Maria Olazabal, Europe, 18-8-5, .661
Colin Montgomerie, Europe, 20-9-7, .653
Billy Casper, USA, 20-10-7, .635
Lanny Wadkins, USA, 20-11-3, .632
Seve Ballesteros, Europe, 20-12-5, .608
Tom Kite, USA, 15-9-4, .607
Lee Westwood, Europe, 16-11-5, .578
Darren Clarke, Europe, 10-7-3, .575
Bernhard Langer, Europe 21-15-6, .571
Hal Sutton, USA, 7-5-4, .563
Peter Oosterhuis, Europe, 14-11-3, .554
Nick Faldo, Europe, 23-19-4, .543
Ian Woosnam, Europe, 14-12-5, .532
Howard Clark, Europe, 7-7-1, .500
Bernard Gallacher, Europe, 13-13-5, .500
Tony Jacklin, Europe, 13-14-8, .485
Tiger Woods, USA, 13-14-2, .483

Suprised how little RC golf Tom Watson had played really.

.Shotrock- cheers for the stats man. nice work but how do you work out a draw!!! donald and poulter have the same win record , but donald has the better no loss record. nice to see donald and poulter up there though.. I suppose your formula does work out average points scored though

"Best Winning Percentages Europe
Minimum 5 Matches Played
Donald, 8-2-1, .773
Poulter, 8-3-0, .727
Way, 6-2-1, .722
Lawrie, 3-1-1, .700
Garcia, 14-6-4 .667"

lol to see tiger at the bottom-

Mysti - That's matchplay -- but I would absolutely take Tiger over any other golfer (US or Europe) come singles day at Medinah. Rory a close second.

Would be a different table if it just showed the singles. Isn't Woods 3-1-1 ?

Thats not bad for singles..

He must be a horrid partner!!

I dont think pairing him and Phil helped his stats to be honest, not a master stroke that one.