OWGR - Week #39

I'm sure nobody cares about this after last night's drama, and couldn't care less myself as I was watching those amazing scenes (and that seems the case for the Official WGR site this morning who are still to update the rankings)...

Obviously, only some marginal shifts here and there, with Sneds moving up to #9 helped by some FedEx Cup upward inertia. In Japan, Ryo showing some signs of revival with his first top 10 in the last three months, and you could say he came just one letter short of winning, as the winner there was a Korean called Ryu, who should be moving pretty close to #200 as a result. There were probably at least two happy Americans last night, as Brooks Koepka recorded his first CT win in Catalunya, only a few short months after joining that tour in Europe, leapfroging the two US CT 'veterans' Uihlein and Pinkney who are still to register their first wins. Koepka should move somewhere around #430 (and to #39 in the CT ranks). Also Russell Henley won the Chiquita Classic on the Web.com tour after a play-off and will clinb up to ~#235. Congrats also to the local veteran Tsai Chi-Huang, winner in Taiwan on the Asian Tour, enjoying a jump of almost 1000 places (!) to somewhere ~470.

Probably the most intriguing result of last week (apart from what happened in Chicago), is Branden Grace's latest win in South Africa (his second official win of the year at his home course, Fancourt!). Looks like a small win by all accounts, but if I'm not mistaking (TBC!), it may prove to be the case of him doing (unintentionally, I'm sure) a mini-Westood (remember the Indonesian Master?)... His own presence in that tournament (Vodacom Origins), looks like may have pushed the rating level of the event high enough so that his win will propell him inside the top 50 for the first time in his carreer! Nice one, Branden!

The OWGR rankings list after week #39 should look like this:

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

Well put pd. Normally I enjoy your post, but today I don't give a sh*t.

PS: Spot on re. Grace dooing a mini-Westwood. Think the OWGR system should be revised to avoid that.

I think this week's owgr should read:
Donald
Poulter
McIlroy
Rose
Lawrie
Colsaerts
McDowell
Garcia
Hanson
Westwood
Kaymer
Molinari

Westwood withdraws from the Dunhill . . .

kwinigolfer wrote:Westwood withdraws from the Dunhill . . .

Too much partying with the vice captains?

Yep, Westy's departure means a drop inside the 46 pts bracket, we'll see what else happens before Thursday...

Top 5 will remain unchanged after next week.

So just to confirm, early count for this week suggests:

- A. Dunhill @ ~46pts (down from 54 last year)
- Las Vegas @ ~30pts (up from 24 last year)

A correction for my previous post... only the top 4 are safe this week.
- Oosthuizen could move as high as #5 with a win
- DJ as high as #6
- Kaymer ...... #23
- Harrington ..........#38

pd,
I see you have a write-up on Week 39, but not the owgr site - perhaps they should hire you?

Next milestone will be Dec 31st when the Top fifty will be earning invitations to Augusta (and the Cadillac). That'll make the next few tournaments very important for golfers such as:
#39: David Lynn
42: Bjorn
45: Jacobson
46: Laird
47: Rafa
52: Donaldson
53: Dyson
58: Ramsay
59: Siem
60: Hansen
62: Quiros
etc.

Still waiting to see who's committed to PGA Tour Q-School . . . . .

Thanks, kwini.

As we said a while ago, it should be an interesting last quarter of a year this one, both on the PGAT and especially on the ET, with a few new developments/events on the line. I'll be curious to draw a line at the end of the year and see who has benefitted the most from these in terms of rankings: Americans, Euros, Asians, Saffers, Aussies, etc...

Dufner, Schwartzel and Van Pelt among the early declarations for the "Perth International" - top Aussies staying away in droves (or should that be drove?).

I see that Woods has confirmed that he will only play two more OWGR sanctioned events before the end of the year, CIMB and his own thingy... In this case, considering also Rory's known schedule so far, Tiger Woods can NOT catch Rory in the rankings before the end of 2012!
Theoretically Luke still has a chance to catch Rory, but his remaining schedule is (at least for me) a bit blurred at the moment...

- Grace could move as high as #36 with a win
- Blixt could move well inside the top 100 with a win, while Daly would stop just short of that if the unthinkable will happen in Vegas. But as some would say, anything is possible in Vegas...

Tiger won't be at the HSBC Champions?
So much for the PGA Tour's endorsement of WGC events outside the US.
Disgraceful.

kwinigolfer wrote:
Next milestone will be Dec 31st when the Top fifty will be earning invitations to Augusta (and the Cadillac).

Kwini... I believe the Cadillac top-50 criteria is from two weeks and then one week out... not at December 31.

kwinigolfer wrote:Tiger won't be at the HSBC Champions?
So much for the PGA Tour's endorsement of WGC events outside the US.
Disgraceful.

Tiger not playing the HSBC is just Tiger... Phil and some of the others top American's are committed... and overall I would expect the field to be represented by Americans fairly similarly as it has been in the last 2 years.

But as far as WGC's.... specifically the HSBC and the supposed new SA WGC... There's more going on here than meets the eye. The WGC-HSBC for 2013 was supposed to be announced as a fully official event on the PGAT at the same time it was announced the 2013 CIMB would become fully official... but the CIMB was and the HSBC was not. The fly in the ointment is the new WGC (or whatever it is) for South Africa. Without getting into the details... NO way the PGAT is going to make 2 more co-sanctioned events outside the U.S. fully official on the PGAT AND allow them to count against the current 15 event minimum.

robo,
Good to see you back!

I'll be interested to see the final CIMB field - will that count next year as a FedEx Cup tournament?

Kwini

Dont blame the players when they don't turn up to some dump somewhere in china to play something which is only marginally better than an exhibition in concept. Maybe someone should have thought about adding another WGC to somewhere that deserves one and with a field constructed in a similar manner to the other WGC's.

Wouldn't surprise me if the WGC champions did not survive beyond the current contract length of the sponsorship. A less inspiring event you could not imagine.

Mac,

You're right of course, but why would Finchem agree to it being a WGC if he wasn't committed to according it full PGA Tour status? The sort of half-pregnant behaviour that drives me crazy.

Only real surprise about Woods not playing is that HSBC corporately has been a TW benefactor.

KJ Choi wins the KJ Choi tournament . . . . . . . . .

David Lingmerth with a nice lead now with just a few web.com holes to play - could be a rewarding weekend for Swedes with Noren and Blixt, and even Robbie Karlsson starting his day's work well.