OWGR Week 50 & YEAR END

First topic message reminder :

Assuming NONE of the players below were to earn points this week, this is how the OWGR would look a YEAR END.   Players in bold are playing this week,

45 - Rickie Fowler - Thailand
46 - Jimmy Walker
47 - Thongchai Jaidee - Thailand
48 - Peter Hanson
49 - Joost Luiten
50 - Richard Sterne
51 - Branden Grace - Nelson Mandela
52 - Harris English
53 - Boo Weekley
54 - Bernd Wiesberger - Thailand
55 - Scott Piercy
56 - Gary Woodland
57 - Bo Van Pelt
58 - Brendon de Jonge
59 - Chris Kirk
60 - Kiradech Aphibarnrat - Thailand

Scenarios for the players in action this week who can affect the top-50 bubble at YEAR END.  (Thailand at 38 points, Nelson Mandela at 20)

The likely safe spot for any of the players would be to pass Hanson for #48.  But passing Luiten for #49 is probably good enough, and  passing Sterne could be enough.

Branden Grace - Playing Nelson Mandela (Currently T3 in R2 in progress)
* Needs the minimum 1.2 points to pass Sterne (T22 or better)
* Needs 4.2 points to pass Luiten (2-way T5 or better)
* Needs 6.7 points to pass Hanson (2-way T3)

Bernd Wiesberger - Playing Thailand (T27 after 2nd rd)
* Needs 2.3 points to pass Sterne (21st place)
* Needs 5.5 points to pass Luiten (2-way T9)
* Needs 7.9 points to pass Hanson (2-way T5)
* Needs 1.3 points more than Grace to pass Grace

Kiradech Aphibarnrat - Playing Thailand (T7 after 2nd rd)
* Needs 12.0 points to pass Sterne (2-way T3)
* Needs 15.2 points to pass Luiten (solo 3rd)
* Needs 17.6 points to pass Hanson (2-way T2)
* Needs 11 points more than Grace to pass Grace
* Needs 10 points more than Wiesberger to pass Wiesberger

Thorbjorn Olesen will miss the cut at Thailand and finish the year at #65 at best.

D.A. Points - Playing Thailand (T27 through 2nd rd)
* Needs a 2-way tie for 2nd to pass Sterne & Luiten, and a solo 2nd place to pass Hanson

Michael Thompson will miss the cut at Thailand and finish the year at #79 at best.

Ryo Ishikawa (T27 after 2 rounds) can pass Sterne (but not Luiten) with a win in Thailand. Grace could knock Ryo back out of the top-50 with 3.3 points or a 16th place finish.

NO other players can factor in top-50 bubble by year end.

I think the Masters GreenCoats would be perfectly content with a 90 player field.

And that is what you would have w/o Stadler, Mize, Crenshaw, Woosie etc.

They are not going to dilute the field and add #51-#60.

That's true GPB, and #51-#60 wouldn't necessarily enhance their party. But they have shown flexibility recently.
Perhaps they could invite one or two youngsters from other countries, Italy for instance, to complement the sushi standing order of Ishikawa?

Maybe it is the Japanese Mafia that is twisting ANGC to invite Ryo Ishikawa.

91 members of the Japan PGA resign because of links to the Japanese Mafia, Yakuza.

http://www.golfchannel.com/news/golftalkcentral/japan-pga-resigns-en-masse-after-link-organized-crime/

ESPN is reporting that William Morris Endeavor is going to buy the IMG division of Forstmann Little.

Adam Scott is definitely playing Hyundai and I have seen reports that he is playing Sony.

By my projections, he has an outside shot of claiming the #1 spot if he should happen to win both those events.  Working against him is that the tournaments will be additional, rather than replacement, tournaments in his 52 week resume.

If he wins both events, and they are worth a total of 104 points, he should overtake Tiger after week 2.

If he wins both events, and they are worth a total of 100 points, he should backdoor Tiger for the #1 spot after Week 3. Pencil whipping through attrition.

Assuming everyone qualified plays Hyundai (except Tiger, Henrik, Rose, PMick, and GMAC) it looks like like Hyundai is going to be a low OWGR 46. 

With Adam in the Sony field, I think it will be at least as strong as Hyundai, but probably not much stronger.

So a long story short, if Adam wins both Hyundai and Sony, he can get real close to Tiger in the rankings but probably not enough to get to the number 1.

I don't either Adam or Tiger is playing week 3 (Humana, Abu Dhabi) but Stenson is playing all three tournaments in the Middle East and Tiger is playing week 4 at the Farmers and Week 5 in Dubai.

if Tiger stumbles out of the gate, and Adam and Henrik start the year strong, the #1 spot will probably be up for grabs at Doral.  (WGC Cadillac).

GPB wrote:So a long story short, if Adam wins both Hyundai and Sony, he can get real close to Tiger in the rankings but probably not enough to get to the number 1.

Adam Scott has both the Hyundai and Sony listed on his website schedule. As of year end... Adam is only 86 points behind Tiger, and Tiger is depreciating faster than Adam...  So... if the Hyundai and Sony come out as strong as you suggest (at least 86 points total for the two)... Scott would take over #1 by winning both.

I know it was a bit of a tinpot tournament but a pretty impressive recovery from Europe to snatch the Royal Trophy at the end, 7-3 down and snatch it 8.5 to 7.5. On balance it was probably more a case of the Asians in meltdown and throwing it away tho. Still very impressive from Howell being 3 down with 4 to play and winning it on the last. Bit of a downer seeing Lawrie go down so meekly...maybe needs his sn to beat him again to get his mojo going.

robopz wrote:

GPB wrote:So a long story short, if Adam wins both Hyundai and Sony, he can get real close to Tiger in the rankings but probably not enough to get to the number 1.

As of year end... Adam is only 86 points behind Tiger, and Tiger is depreciating faster than Adam...  So... if the Hyundai and Sony come out as strong as you suggest (at least 86 points total for the two)... Scott would take over #1 by winning both.

Robo, Adam Scott's divisor increases by two.  He is going to need those tournaments to get to 104 pt level

GPB wrote:

robopz wrote:

GPB wrote:So a long story short, if Adam wins both Hyundai and Sony, he can get real close to Tiger in the rankings but probably not enough to get to the number 1.

As of year end... Adam is only 86 points behind Tiger, and Tiger is depreciating faster than Adam...  So... if the Hyundai and Sony come out as strong as you suggest (at least 86 points total for the two)... Scott would take over #1 by winning both.

Robo, Adam Scott's divisor increases by two.  He is going to need those tournaments to get to 104 pt level

Ah... good point... Adam doesn't have early 2012 events to replace...

Some more thoughts on early year OWGR race....

Tiger earned about 25.7 points per event in 2013, compared to 18.8 points for Adam Scott and 15.6 per event for Henrik Stenson.

However, taking more recent trends (using the last half of the season for each) the picture changes a lot.  In his last 10 out of his 19 events, Tiger earned 18.7 points per event, Scott 19.7 (in his last 10 out of 20) and Stenson 25.3 (in his last 15 out of 31).  IMO since OWGR rankngs are based on averages, these are the trends we more should be watching.

While any of the three might get hot and win a few, or go cold an earn very little in a few events... I believe it more likely they'll all three trend in the new year between 15-25 points per event.  With that in mind... even with Tiger depreciating faster than the other two at this point... if the current trends continue... I'm thinking it would take a good 6 or 7 events played into the season for Adam to catch Tiger... and Stenson a few more.  With Stenson likely to play more than either... that could be about the same time though... like George suggested.... sometime around the Masters... maybe even later.

The potential fly in that ointment is Tiger's pattern of playing to his best early in the year. Despite the fact Tiger was probably playing the least well of the three in the last half of 2013... Torrey, Doral an Bay Hill are still "chalk" events for the man.  I doubt he'll win all three agian... but I would expect him to significantly outperform his late season average in points earned in those three which makes the task harder for Scott or Stenson even if they get off to a hot start themselves.  

Bottom line...  Kaymer, Westy, Luke and Rory all got to #1 and within a relatively short time... all 4 went into significant slumps, at least compared to the level of play that got them to #1. Thus all 4 got passed somewhat by the better play of others, but in larger part by "spitting the bit" on their own.

But that's not Tiger's pattern, and I don't expect it to become his pattern now.  Setting 2010-11 aside as aberrations... his pattern is to still play significantly well even when he's not winning so much, and I believe that will continue.  Major injury aside...  I expect him to earn somewhere around 350 raw OWGR points on the low side... up to 500+ on the high side next year.  So IMO if Scott or Stenson have designs on #1... they need to play at least as good as they did the last half of the year, cuz I don't think Tiger's gonna just disappear and let either overtake him by attrition...

Robo:  Yes, it is going to take a perfect storm for the #1 spot to be seriously challenged in the short term (next 3 months)

More than anything, Tiger is going to have to stumble of of the gate.  If he wins Torrey or Dubai, he won't be caught, or even he finishes in the top 3 of both.

And then either AS and/or HS need to win a couple of events early and neither have a long history of a winning a bunch of tournaments.

It is going to take an extraordinary chain of events for Tiger to be challenged for the #1 spot early in the year.  I don't see it happening, but I recognized that it could happen.

Really GPB,
Is it not the case that if Stenson (and Scott for that matter) carries on collecting points at the rate he's currently accruing them and Nine Chins fails to defend 50% of the points he got in 2013 then Stenson/Scott would catch him quite easily?

Nine Chins needs another year like 2013 just to tread water doesn't he?

Very rare that Tiger loses the #1 spot when he is healthy. The numbers absolutely tell that story.

But, he certainly will one of these days and I would not at all be surprised to see Rory at #1 year end 2014.

Yes SuperRealist, it is going to take an extraordinary chain of events for Tiger to be challenged for the #1 spot early in the year.

#1.  Tiger is going to have stumble.

#2.  Scott or Stenson are going to have to continue to play great.  Neither one of them has had a history of long sustained periods of great play.

Scott could not win the Aussie Open that had only few other World Class players in the field.

Lost in Stenson recent run of good play are a T33, T34, a T31 finishes in limited field, no cut events.  

I hope Stenson and Scott do challenge Tiger for the top spot, I think it will be good for golf. 

I would lay 10/1 odds that no one takes the #1 spot from Tiger in the first three months of 2014.

Super - Are you saying Tiger needs another 5-win year to maintain his #1 spot? (Assume that's what you mean by "tread water".)

Shotrock wrote:Super - Are you saying Tiger needs another 5-win year to maintain his #1 spot? (Assume that's what you mean by "tread water".)

I'm not entirely sure how the retarded Two Year rankings work, but he gained a hell of a lot of points in 2013, due to a high number of wins and a lot of well placed finishes.
I'm not entirely sure how they depreciate and how quickly, I know he won't directly defend them point for point, but surely he is going to have to be at least half as good as he was this year to maintain #1? If he doesn't surely someone in the top 6-7 playing consistently could overtake him around US Open time.

No one gained as many points as Stenson in 2013 (in relation to how many he lost.) so could be an interesting first 6 months.