OWGR - Week #41

It may be October, Fall Series and all that, but this has been one of the busiest weeks in terms of OWGR sanctioned events, with no less than nine tournaments taking place on four continents and only one of them was actually below the 12 points mark. So, here we go:
1. A fantastic first win for Shane Lowry as a professional in Portugal, confirming if it was necessary that his amateur win 3 years ago was not a fluke. Shane jumps up to a career best #74, while the runner up, Ross Fisher is rewarded with very welcome return to the top 100 (#96). Michael Campbell is obviously worth a mention here, his third place being his best performance in a very, very long time and he will enjoy a significant jump up in rankings of ~250 places, to somewhere around #355.
2. Brilliant first win also for the Swedish rookie Jonas Blixt at the Frys.com Open in California. Terrific couple of weeks he's had and there's no surprise to see him now jumping well inside the top 100 (#75), just below none other than Shane Lowry himself.
3. Many would argue with this, but the Japan Open has been one of the most rewarding events of the week in terms of owgr points, despite having a pretty average field even by its own standards. At least the organisers have tried this year to make it tough on the players, with something of an US Open-style setup, on the beautiful island of Okinawa. And by God they succeeded… the cutline was a mind-boggling 13-over par, with the winner, Kenichi Kuboya, finishing with a score of 8-over par! I’m not saying it, but some could be forgiven for thinking that these numbers reflect also the standard of play as well as the toughness of the setup… Anyway, Kuboya won’t mind it at all, as he enjoys a huge jump up the rankings somewhere around #140. Runner up was Juvic Pagunsan from the Philippines, last year’s winner of the OoM on the Asian Tour, who is now getting really close to the top 100 in the rankings.
4. Paul Casey went back to Korea this week in search for another much needed win at the Shinhan Open, but in the end he came up short this time around, finishing only T5. The winner was Kim Meen Whee after a playoff with Kevin Na. Kim will move somewhere near #300. Charlie Wi, Noh, Huh and KT Kim have been in the field there as well, and it’s good to see that they performed well finishing all inside the top 15.
5. Congratulations also to Gaganjeet Bhullar from India, winner in Macau on the Asian Tour. He’s been showing some good form lately and the results are beginning to appear, climbing now really close to the top 100 (~#115).
6. And wait, we’re not finished with Asia… there was also a 4th event over there, on OneAsia Tour, called the Nanshan China Masters, where no other than King Louis was one of the guests. And fair play to him for showing some interest and finishing on a decent T5 place. The event was won by the local star Liang Wenchong after a very long playoff with none other than YE Yang. Liang is moving somewhere just below #250 as a result.
7. The sexy Czech Open on CT has been in the end a Danish affair, the winner being Andreas Harto followed by Joachim Hansen, with Harto climbing somewhere around #270.
8. Very well done also to rookie Shawn Stefani winner for the second time on the Web.com tour, and moving now very close to #200 in the world.
9. And finally, just to complete the picture, congrats to Alan Wagner from Argentina who won the Roberto de Vicenzo Invitational on the LatinoAmerica Tour. And since I mentioned South America, there is one thing I noticed going through all these events and results which is probably worth a mention… This has to be one of the best weeks ever for Brazilian golf, with three top 10s on three different continents! Rocha T4 on the PGAT, Da Silva T8 on the Asian Tour and Stapff T4 on the LatinoAmerica Tour! Rio 2016 is only 4 years away…

The OWGR table after week #41 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 Matt Kuchar
14 Dustin Johnson
15 Keegan Bradley
16 Zach Johnson
17 Phil Mickelson
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 Jason Day
28 Rickie Fowler
29 Paul Lawrie
30 Francesco Molinari
31 Charl Schwartzel
32 Carl Pettersson
33 Martin Kaymer
34 Bill Haas
35 Nicolas Colsaerts
36 Gonzalo Fdez-Castano
37 Branden Grace
38 John Senden
39 Ryan Moore
40 David Toms
41 K.J. Choi
42 David Lynn
43 Robert Garrigus
44 Geoff Ogilvy
45 Thomas Bjorn
46 Scott Piercy
47 Fredrik Jacobson
48 Martin Laird
49 Rafael Cabrera Bello
50 Bae Sang-moon
-------------------------
51 Jamie Donaldson
52 Alexander Noren
53 Kevin Na
54 Padraig Harrington
55 Bud Cauley
56 Aaron Baddeley
57 Simon Dyson
58 Greg Chalmers
59 Thorbjorn Olesen
60 Richie Ramsay
61 Kyle Stanley
62 Marcel Siem
63 John Huh
64 Anders Hansen
65 Bernd Wiesberger
66 Hiroyuki Fujita
67 Vijay Singh
68 K.T. Kim
69 Mark Wilson
70 Jonathan Byrd
71 Ben Crane
72 Alvaro Quiros
73 Marcus Fraser
74 Shane Lowry
75 Jonas Blixt
76 Ben Curtis
77 Pablo Larrazabal
78 Michael Thompson
79 George Coetzee
80 Matteo Manassero
81 Marc Leishman
82 Tim Clark
83 Jeff Overton
84 Robert Karlsson
85 Johnson Wagner
86 Ryo Ishikawa
87 Miguel A Jimenez
88 Retief Goosen
89 Robert Rock
89 Yuta Ikeda
91 Noh Seung-yul
92 Jeev Milkha Singh
93 Ted Potter-jr
94 Y.E. Yang
95 Danny Willett
96 Ross Fisher
97 Charlie Wi
98 Brendon de Jonge
99 Ryan Palmer
100 Rory Sabbatini
-----------------------
101 Charles Howell-III
102 Gary Woodland
103 Jimmy Walker
...

Great work, pd.

Increasing number of successful Europeans, and possibly more next year, who have never had full ET membership, Blixt and Laird for two, Lingmerth worth watching next year, and hopefully Knox as well.

Yet, most of the more journeymen European Tour players who went through Q-School or web.com have pretty much remained journeymen, albeit rich ones: Cejka, Davis, Owen, Gronberg, Johnson (Richard S) etc.

Nice Recap, PD, I wish some of the mainstream golf portals would put together a summary such as yours every week.

Although I am noting an inconsistency with a post from last weeks thread.

Els is the only top 30 guy playing this week for owgr points...

I guess you missed King Louis in China? Understandable.

Stage I of PGA Q-school. Anyone know a nice concise link with all the entrants?

The PGA Q-school link is quite cumbersome to navigate unless I am missing something obvious.

There are 14 sites for Stage I and getting to the field is several clicks each.

Cheers PD

"the cutline was a mind-boggling 13-over par"

Ouch

Cheers guys...
Hopefully I didn't miss anything, it's been a particularly complicated week to keep track of everything going on. GPB, you're right about Oosty, became aware only in the second part of the week that he was playing in China.

kwini, robo - talking about Shane's Q-school, I can quote you what I heard him saying in a radio interview this morning... When the reporter asked him what are his plans now, he said something like (very approx. quote,)...

...my plan was to go and play in the US Q-school this week... so, we'll see, I'll have to sit down with my manager in a couple of days, if we'll sober up by then, and see what we do...

So, take from that what you wish...

Thank for the write-up PD,

Great win for Shane, for the moment let's hope he can maintain his position in the top 100 and maybe next year make a push for the top 50.

Cheers, inco. Let's hope so, although kwini made a good point yesterday about another possible option for him, i.e. try and use this momentum of good form and go to a few of those rich Asian tourneys that will follow shortly and grab some more points. Reality is that he is now within reach of the top 50 threshold... he needs basically either another win like this one or a 2nd place in one of those big events in China, and he'll be in the top 50, and getting that by the end of the year will start to bring lots of rewards for next year...
It'll be interesting to see what plan they'll come up with, he and Conor Ridge, if/when they sober up..

Is Conor Ridge a golf course?Anyone played it

dynamark wrote:Is Conor Ridge a golf course?Anyone played it

Or Jerry Maguire, as McDowell used to call him...

Went on there last night about nine events and it turns out that I still missed one.
There was another 6-pointer down under won by Peter Wilson, so there you go....

Really weak field strength projected for the two main events this week:

- Perth International @ 22 pts (disappointing to see virtually no Aussie stars, except for Chalmers, supporting this)
- McGladery @ 26-28 pts (big drop from 42 pts last year)

Top 6 to remain the same.
Dufner will go up to #7 with a win down under...

EDIT: Perth Intl. should be worth only ~22 pts because it's a co-sanctioned event...

princedracula wrote:

RE: Shane Lowry

...my plan was to go and play in the US Q-school this week... so, we'll see, I'll have to sit down with my manager in a couple of days, if we'll sober up by then, and see what we do...

So, take from that what you wish...

Sounds like Lowry has decided against PGAT Q-school....

Indeed robo, he made that quite clear now, after consultations with his management... Hopefully will prove the right decision, he said he quite fancies the courses they're going to play in China the following weeks...

Final count for this week:

- McGladery @ 26 pts
- Perth Intl. @ 22 pts

Cauley could move as high as #43 with a win
Grillo somewhere ~#215 with same...

No stopping Broberg: Could be close to 130th.
Wonder if he receives a little bonus in his "battlefield promotion" status for winning four events?

Nothing that I know of... But now he's leading the CT ranks for sure. Interesting that 3 out of the 4 wins have been in Scandinavian countries, obviously he likes it there...