OWGR week 2

Quick projections for week #2.

Euro Tour - Volvo Champions - This is the maximum ranking the top-4 finishers could obtain depending on the outcome of the Sony Open in Hawaii.

Winner Oosthuizen #27,  2nd Grace #41, T3 Luiten #47,  T3 Fleetwood #86

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PGA Tour - Sony Open - This is the maximum ranking selected contenders (down to the -9's) could attain with a win today.

Zach Johnson 4, Dufner 9, Walker 31, English 33, Chris Kirk 35, Tanihara 51, Stuard 73, Overton 75, Perez 77, Goosen 85, Wilcox 91, Allenby 159.

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By the way... any of you who are even remotely interested in golf statistics need to check out the newly revamped OWGR site at http://www.owgr.com/  AWESOME.   It's now a great place to check out players in the OWGR era (1986 forward) and all their results worldwide.  Lots of other neat features as well (like side by side player comparisons).  It also appears as though the OWGR will be making event value projections for upcoming events regularly on their front page.  So maybe no need to do that here anymore.

On a more serious note, Kwini... thanks for bringing up the photographer who collapsed and died at the Chick-fil-A Bowl. His name was Dave Martin and I heard about it New Year's Day as email was lighting up about the situation.

What an eye opener that one is. I've heard someone say it was good he passed doing what he loved doing most. Well yeah, I guess there might be some truth to that... but I still think it sucks big time to learn of a most respected and talented colleague passing at age 59.

Anyone who worked golf regularly back in the late 90's to mid '00's would have known Dave. Even though he was a regional guy, he worked a lot of golf in his area and some of the majors outside his area as well. He was the kind of guy who was everybody's friend. Outgoing, gregarious. I got to know him pretty well when I went back out full time golf in 2003 and saw him some in 2004. Then he kind of disappeared. I didn't know until I read his obit he went into editing for a long time and didn't get back behind the camera full time to work for AP again until 2010.

I saw in his portfolio he worked the 2011 Tour Championship, but I never knew it or never saw him as I was inside editing and he was outside shooting. And if he worked the last two TC's, I wasn't aware of it either.

USA Today has a nice tribute to his work for those that are interested (see link below)... a few golf shots included. His most famous and widely circulated golf image was the iconic Mickelson victory leap at the 2004 Masters(which also proves PMick got a little higher off the ground than some suspect... :-)

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/2014/01/01/dave-martin-associated-press-photographer-collapses-dies-chick-fil-a-bowl/4275313/

Nice tribute, robo.
On a related topic, I see Paul Newberry was quoted. He's grinding quite the axe over the propsed new tax-payer-funded sports stadiums for Atlanta teams . . . . . Georgia getting in the news for all the wrong reasons what with their Congressman's belly-aching about free lunches; it seems he gets more than most!


Looking forward to this evening's action; yesterday's coverage seemed unusually funereal so hope there's some excitement today - I don't think these joint Golf Channel / NBC productions work well at all.

Congratz to this weeks winners:

Jimmy Walker wins his 2nd PGATourTournament in 4 months and rises to #32 in the rankings.

Louis Oosthuizen defends his Volvo Championship and rises to #27 in the rankings.

And autograph unfriendly Pavit Tangkamolprasert wins in Jakarta and gets inside the top 600 (maybe 566th?).

Here is my unofficial top 100 projections for tomorrow:

1 . Tiger Woods 11.264
2 . Adam Scott 9.186
3 . Henrik Stenson 8.958
4 . Justin Rose 6.905
5 . Phil Mickelson 6.802
6 . Zach Johnson 6.242
7 . Rory McIlroy 6.194
8 . Matt Kuchar 6.181
9 . Steve Stricker 5.514
10 . Sergio Garcia 5.154
11 . Jason Day 5.146
12 . Ian Poulter 5.091
13 . Jason Dufner 5.025
14 . Brandt Snedeker 4.972
15 . Graeme McDowell 4.821
16 . Jordan Spieth 4.741
17 . Dustin Johnson 4.726
18 . Charl Schwartzel 4.671
19 . Luke Donald 4.563
20 . Webb  Simpson 4.554
21 . Jim Furyk 4.371
22 . Keegan Bradley 4.154
23 . Hideki Matsuyama 3.785
24 . Thomas Bjorn 3.697
25 . Jamie  Donaldson 3.570
26 . Lee Westwood 3.522
27 . Louis Oosthuizen 3.452
28 . Ernie Els 3.406
29 . Bubba Watson 3.350
30 . Victor Dubuisson 3.263
31 . Bill Haas 3.262
32 . Jimmy Walker 3.254
33 . Nick Watney 3.140
34 . Ryan Moore 3.137
35 . Hunter Mahan 3.082
36 . Gonzalo Fdez-Castano 2.927
37 . Kevin  Streelman 2.817
38 . Graham Delaet 2.781
39 . Miguel A Jimenez 2.716
40 . Billy Horschel 2.705
41 . Francesco Molinari 2.682
42 . Branden Grace 2.639
43 . Martin Kaymer 2.621
44 . Jonas  Blixt 2.597
45 . Matteo Manassero 2.591
46 . Chris Kirk 2.571
47 . Harris English 2.562
48 . Rickie Fowler 2.551
49 . David Lynn 2.539
50 . Thongchai Jaidee 2.503
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51 . Joost Luiten 2.478
52 . Richard Sterne 2.299
53 . Peter Hanson 2.280
54 . Gary Woodland 2.265
55 . Boo Weekley 2.258
56 . Bernd Wiesberger 2.213
57 . Scott Piercy 2.156
58 . Kiradech Aphibarnrat 2.097
59 . Brendon de Jonge 2.055
60 . Bo Van Pelt 2.045
61 . D.A. Points 2.023
62 . Kim Hyung-sung 1.981
63 . Peter Uihlein 1.960
64 . Angel  Cabrera 1.954
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65 . Marc Leishman 1.936
66 . Thorbjorn Olesen 1.915
67 . Stephen Gallacher 1.904
68 . Koumei Oda 1.894
69 . Patrick Reed 1.795
70 . Chris Wood 1.792
71 . Nicolas Colsaerts 1.788
72 . Ross Fisher 1.779
73 . Roberto Castro 1.772
74 . Brett Rumford 1.757
75 . Tim Clark 1.736
76 . Michael Thompson 1.725
77 . Shingo Katayama 1.719
78 . Chris Stroud 1.706
79 . Shane Lowry 1.695
80 . Charles Howell-III 1.679
81 . Ryo Ishikawa 1.642
82 . Luke Guthrie 1.642
83 . Robert Garrigus 1.629
84 . Mikko Ilonen 1.616
85 . Martin Laird 1.611
86 . Hideto Tanihara 1.580
87 . Paul Casey 1.578
88 . Brooks Koepka 1.574
89 . Tommy Fleetwood 1.572
90 . Russell Henley 1.567
91 . Marcel Siem 1.554
92 . John Merrick 1.548
93 . David Howell 1.546
94 . Matthew Jones 1.541
95 . George Coetzee 1.524
96 . Park Sung-Joon 1.519
97 . Fredrik Jacobson 1.499
98 . Marcus Fraser 1.496
99 . Ken Duke 1.495
100 . Alexander Noren 1.481
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101 . Chesson Hadley 1.476
102 . Gregory Bourdy 1.475
103 . Pablo Larrazabal 1.467



Padraig Harrington remains outside the top 100 at #121

Peter Kostis:

Great news here about one of my favourite golf commentators:

http://www.golfworldmonday.com/golfworldmonday/20140113?sub_id=m6YFz2X7vbcH#pg20

I've had my check up: If you're over fifty, or have had anything remotely symptomatic, I hope you have your's too.

Preliminary OWGR rating of Abu Dhabi and Humana

Abu Dhabi: 252 (World) + 39 (Home) = 291 ===>OWGR 48
Humana: 198 (World) + 20 (Home) = 219 ===>OWGR 40

Last Year Abu Dhabi's SOF was 380 (OWGR 56) and Humana's SOF was 241 (OWGR 44).

Humana down 10 and Abu Dhabi down a whopping 25% in SoF

themightyone wrote:Humana down 10 and Abu Dhabi down a whopping 25% in SoF

Not sure would read that much into it. Due to the top heavy nature of the OWGR, the addition or subtraction of one or two players can made a big difference in rating.

Humana - For instance Phil not playing the Humana brings it down 4 points. It would be 44 again if he were in the field.

And considering the Tiger/Rose absence coupled with fewer Euro Tour players at the very top of the OWGR this year compared to recent years (top-5 and top-10)... the 8 point drop for Abu Dhabi shouldn't be all that unexpected. Just Tiger swapping out Abu Dhabi for Dubai this year, along with Rose being injured takes 4 points out of Abu Dhabi. Take that and couple it with the lower rankings for guys like Rory, Luke, Oosty and Westwood... and its just more than the improved ranking of Stenson and addition of Phil can overcome.

Some projections from PrinceDracula's twitter account.

Stenson will get to #2 with a 5th place or better.

Depending on how other perform, Phil, Zach, Rory could each get to #4.  Sergio could get to #8.

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GPB estimates (again depending on how others perform)

Sneds could get to #9
Luke and Webb could get to #10.

Accenture Top 64 Watch:  Abu Dhabi

Weisberger (56), Aphibarnrat (58), Uihlein (63) miss the cut

Bubble boys Oleson (66), Gallacher (67), Wood (70) have early tee times for Round 3.

Willett (105), Fleetwood (89), Siem (91), Coetzee (95)  can make a push for the Matchplay with a top 2 finish.  They are each in the top 10 going into the weekend.

RCB (141) should crash the top 64 if he should win.

Some OWGR implications going into Round 4.

Mickelson passes Rose with a 13th place or better.  Mickelson would still be about 102 points behind Stenson should he Mickelson win.

Rory passes Rose with a win and passes Mickelson if Mickelson does not finish in top 5.

If other contenders win*

Craig Lee===>#75 
Bhullar ====>#60 
Larrazabal ==>#52
RC-Bello ===>#60
Jimenez ===>#25
Jaidee=====>#28

Patrick Reed==>#42

*Of course it depends on how other players perform

Larrazabal climbs to #52 (before Hope Results)

Mickelson will be #4 after his T2.

McIlroy is #6 right now after his T2, but will be passed by Zach if he finishes solo 4th or better.