OWGR-August 2015

First topic message reminder :

I think it is time for an update and new thread.  The OWGR Top 100 should all be invited to play the PGA Championship tomorrow.

Nice playing from Troy Merritt for winning the Quicken Loans to get an 11th invite to B-Stone.  Also Marc Warren got a 11th hour invite for his 4th place finish in Scotland.

Kiradech Aphibarnrat did not get an invite for winning the Paul Lawrie Match Play but is 14th in the Int'l Prez Cup standings.

This is what the top 100 should look like tomorrow morning

 
 

1	Rory McIlroy	12.485
2	Jordan Spieth	11.415
3	Bubba Watson	7.541
4	Jason Day	6.916
5	Rickie Fowler	6.674
6	Jim Furyk	6.578
7	Dustin Johnson	6.551
8	Justin Rose	6.422
9	Henrik Stenson	6.069
10	Sergio Garcia	5.614
11	Adam Scott	5.192
12	Zach Johnson	4.975
13	Louis Oosthuizen	4.960
14	Jimmy Walker	4.765
15	Hideki Matsuyama	4.298
16	Matt Kuchar	4.218
17	J.B. Holmes	4.170
18	Patrick Reed	4.009
19	Martin Kaymer	3.822
20	Phil Mickelson	3.745
21	Billy Horschel	3.725
22	Chris Kirk	3.685
23	Brooks Koepka	3.663
24	Danny Willett	3.563
25	Bernd Wiesberger	3.301
26	Paul Casey	3.194
27	Bill Haas	3.182
28	Branden Grace	3.162
29	Brandt Snedeker	3.105
30	Marc Leishman	3.104
31	Kevin Na	3.022
32	Ryan Palmer	2.970
33	Ian Poulter	2.945
34	Kevin Kisner	2.842
35	Gary Woodland	2.840
36	Lee Westwood	2.808
37	Jamie Donaldson	2.780
38	Thongchai Jaidee	2.771
39	Ryan Moore	2.662
40	Charl Schwartzel	2.569
41	Victor Dubuisson	2.567
42	Francesco Molinari	2.565
43	Charley Hoffman	2.563
44	Brendon Todd	2.550
45	Hunter Mahan	2.545
46	Keegan Bradley	2.514
47	Webb Simpson	2.495
48	Shane Lowry	2.477
49	Marc Warren	2.448
50	Robert Streb	2.431
51	Russell Henley	2.398
52	Anirban Lahiri	2.398
53	Tommy Fleetwood	2.395
54	John Senden	2.388
55	Joost Luiten	2.371
56	Miguel A Jimenez	2.360
57	Andy Sullivan	2.356
58	Byeong Hun An	2.338
59	David Lingmerth	2.294
60	Graeme McDowell	2.285
61	Ben Martin	2.281
62	Luke Donald	2.235
63	Steven Bowditch	2.206
64	Matt Every	2.132
65	Alexander Levy	2.130
66	Danny Lee	2.127
67	Kiradech Aphibarnrat	2.092
68	George Coetzee	2.033
69	Cameron Tringale	2.006
70	Stephen Gallacher	1.970
71	Scott Piercy	1.964
72	Matt Jones	1.918
73	Alexander Noren	1.902
74	Richie Ramsay	1.883
75	Brian Harman	1.876
76	Russell Knox	1.862
77	Chris Wood	1.818
78	Pablo Larrazabal	1.813
79	Soren Kjeldsen	1.782
80	Tim Clark	1.776
81	Harris English	1.776
82	Daniel Berger	1.768
83	Justin Thomas	1.766
84	Rafael Cabrera Bello	1.762
85	James Morrison	1.759
86	David Howell	1.747
87	Jason Dufner	1.738
88	Eddie Pepperell	1.725
89	Shawn Stefani	1.699
90	George McNeill	1.698
91	Graham Delaet	1.694
92	Kevin Streelman	1.673
93	Jason Bohn	1.670
94	Ross Fisher	1.669
95	Tyrrell Hatton	1.668
96	Emiliano Grillo	1.639
97	Morgan Hoffmann	1.627
98	James Hahn	1.623
99	Troy Merritt	1.618
100	Hiroshi Iwata	1.616
101	Brendan Steele	1.612
102	Padraig Harrington	1.612
103	Cameron Smith	1.602

GPB wrote:In college, I was good friends with a guy named Elvis Moses O'Leary.  


Moses is a common Jewish name

LadyPutt wrote:I think you'll find that some of the names you find ridiculous are simply cultural differences.

BINGO!!!

An oxymoron, surely.

Reminds me of the line from The Last Crusade, "Indiana? We named the dog Indiana"

Or perhaps just a moron..

Possible the Poulter falls out of the Top 50, which might mean his spot in the HSBC tournament is at risk.  (not sure of deadlines.

Both Mahan and Schwartzel made the cut at Frys and all they need to pass IJP is a 49th and 37th respectively.

Henley needs a solo 9th or better and he is currently 6th.

Aphibarnrat is playing in Macau, and he is currently 7th but all he needs is a 14th.

Sullivan will pass Poulter if he wins in Portugal, which is looking likely

Steele would also pass him should he win the Frys.

Thomas needs to win or solo 2nd to pass IJP.

==========

Going into the Frys, Rory is about 70 pts behind Day/Spieth

Here is OWGR's explanation on why Day is overtaking Spieth this week in the OWGR

Jason Day will return to World Number One this week following Jordan Spieth’s 3 week spell at the top since his win at the Tour Championship by Coca-Cola.

Neither player has played in an OWGR qualifying tournament since East Lake but players lose OWGR points every week irrespective of whether they play or not.

The system works such that all points wins at tournaments played within the last 13 weeks (3 months) count at their full value. Points wins from tournaments played more than 13 weeks ago are reduced by a weighting relative to how long ago the tournament was played.

The table below shows the Top 10 total points winners for the last 13 weeks only. This shows that 2/3rds of Jason Day’s total points (333.38/ 501.28) have been earned in the last 13 weeks. Accordingly Jason is losing less points each week at the moment than Jordan and explains why for the last two weeks the gap has closed between the two and why Jason will go ahead of Jordan in the Week 42 OWGR.

Jason Day		333.38
Jordan Spieth		161.71
Zach Johnson		142.33
Henrik Stenson		141.76
Rickie Fowler		134.57
Bubba Watson		127.85
Justin Rose		117.91
Shane Lowry		92.30
Brooks Koepka		86.04
Matthew Fitzpatrick		71.82

Congratz to the winners in Asia.

Matt Kuchar wins in Fiji Open, VJ finishes T3.  (He could climb two spots to #13)
Satoshi Kodaira win the Japan Open, Adam Scott finishes 7th. (he gets close to the Top 100)
Hend wins the Macau tournament, Lahiri finishes T2. Hend moves to to about 132nd.

Poulter can take up to four bullets to stay in Top 50.  Already taken one bullet from Aphibarnrat who finished 6th to pass him.

Sullivan is looking more and more like he is going to win in Portugal.  7 shot lead with 12 holes.  A Sullivan win would be another bullet.  Doesn't look like there are any other threats in Portugal

Mahan (T49th or better) Schwartzel (37th or better) would be the third and fourth bullet.  They are T27 and T20th going into Round 4.

Other threats to Poulter are

Steele (has to win)  Currently 1st
Thomas (has to win or solo 2nd), Currently 12th
Grillo (Has to win or solo 2nd), Currently T4th
Henley (Finish solo 9th or better), Currently T20th

GPB,
OWGR cut-off is Monday, Oct 19th. Poulter sweating bullets! Looks like two have already hit him.

Poulter has another possibility. If he earns enough from the Hong Kong Open, he could jump into the top 30 R2D.
The cutoff for this category in the HSBC WGC is the 26th October.
I don't know how the $2 million prize fund breaks down, but I expect he would have to finish very near, if not in first place to get enough.


...........that's if he's playing of course.....

Not entered, not so far anyway.

Poulter has slipped to 51 in the OWGR. Doesn't look like he is playing Hong Kong.
My (extremely) rough calculations show that there could be over 78 players eligible for the HSBC and that is the line before reserves are accepted. But he will be 1st reserve due to his ranking.

I'm never wrong wrote:Poulter has slipped to 51 in the OWGR. Doesn't look like he is playing Hong Kong.
My (extremely) rough calculations show that there could be over 78 players eligible for the HSBC and that is the line before reserves are accepted. But he will be 1st reserve due to his ranking.

???  reserves comes from the money lists of the minor tours.

=======

Reserve priority


Reserves
If there are less than 78 players entered through Categories (1 – 10) above, then further players who are not otherwise exempt will be selected in order from the “RESERVE” Category below.


The first four reserves will consist of the next highest ranked player not otherwise exempt on each of the Orders of Merit specified in (6 – 9) above. The order of these 4 reserves will be determined by their OWGR ranking as of Monday 19th October 2015.
The next highest ranked player from the Race to Dubai Rankings as of 26th October 2015.
The next highest ranked player from the OWGR as of 19th October 2015.
The next highest ranked player from the final 2014/2015 Fedex Cup Points list.


==========

https://www.hsbcgolf.com/who-is-qualifying/

Hmm, I might have read that wrong then. Poulter could be as low as 6th reserve then.

As of this morning, I am counting 80 players that are exempt for the HSBC.  

Besides the OWGR Top 50

FEX 4-	1	SangMoon	Bae
FEX 4-	2	Steven	Bowditch
RTD 5-	1	Ben	An
RTD 5-	2	George	Coetzee
RTD 5-	3	Luke	Donald
RTD 5-	4	Ross	Fisher
RTD 5-	5	Matt	Fitzpatrick
RTD 5-	6	Tommy	Fleetwood
RTD 5-	7	David	Howell
RTD 5-	8	James	Morrison
RTD 5-	9	Alex	Noren
RTD 5-	10	Thorbjorn	Oleson
RTD 5-	11	Marc	Warren
RTD 5-	12	Miguel	Jimenez
Asian 6-	1	Scott	Hend
Asian 6-	2	Andrew	Dodt
Asian 6-	3	SSP	Chawrasia
Asian 6-	4	Richard T	Lee
Japan 7-	1	K.T.	Kim
Japan 7-	2	Yuta	Ikeda
AUS 8-	1	Greg	Chalmers
AUS 8-	2	Steven	Jeffress
SUN 9-	1	Thomas	Aiken
SUN 9-	2	Danie	Von Tonder
CHI 10-		Chinese #1
CHI 10-		Chinese #2
CHI 10-		Chinese #3
CHI 10-		Chinese #4
CHI 10-		Chinese #5
CHI 10-		Chinese #6

Players I don't expect to see playing the HSBC

Jason Day, Jim Furyk, Phil Mickelson, SangMoon Bae

Upon further review:

Didn't read the print of the FEDEX Top 30 exemption.  They are taking 5 players from this criteria so it looks like there are 83 exempt players to the HSBC.

So even though IJP is the 6th alternate, it is going to take 11 WDs for him to get in the field.  IMO, the alternate list goes at least 6 players, but not to 11

Incidentally the top five players from the FEX criteria will be Bowditch, Summerhays, Thomas, Jones, Knox.

Bowditch and SM Bae were the only players in the Tour Championship that are not in the OWGR Top 50.

GPB - can you have a look at section 12 of the eligibility criteria?


Reserve Policy:

Any withdrawal from Categories (3 – 10) will be replaced by the next eligible and available Player within that Category up until the publication of the first round draw on Tuesday of the tournament week. After this time any withdrawals will be replaced by the next eligible and available Player from within the reserve Category.

Does that mean if someone in Cat 3 (Top 50 OWGR) drops out before Tuesday, Poulter is in?

The way I interpret that policy is that the reserves are prioritize as detailed in section 11 until Tuesday of Tournament week.

Then if someone WDs after the Tuesday of Tournament week, then it goes to the player that is on-site and listed as an alternate.

That's my interpretation, for what it is worth.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/golf/rydercup/11942494/Ian-Poulter-dashes-from-Florida-home-to-Hong-Kong-Open-to-ensure-he-is-eligible-to-play-in-2016-Ryder-Cup.html

Regarding Ian Poulter...

Sure Beemer made more out of that little transaction than he ever would in prizemoney . . . . .

Only a matter of time before lw1 joins Poults, and Donald, and McDool outside the Top 50. Inevitable unless he has a good result at HSBC. Changing of the guard.

For sure.  Quid Pro Quo arrangement between Beem and IJP.

No way this would happen on the PGATour for anyone.  An fully exempt player has to register for the tournament by Friday before tournament week.

This is probably a harbinger for Poulter.  Falling out the Top 50 means that he is going to have a play a lot more tournaments to maintain status on the PGAT and EuroTour.  Assuming he falls out of Top 64, he is not exempt for any WGC's and probably only exempt for the PGA for majors.

He will no longer be able to play an elite schedule.

Edt:  Poulter is exempt for the Masters by finishing T6 last year.

kwinigolfer wrote:Sure Beemer made more out of that little transaction than he ever would in prizemoney . . . . .

Only a matter of time before lw1 joins Poults, and Donald, and McDool outside the Top 50. Inevitable unless he has a good result at HSBC. Changing of the guard.

European Ryder Cup could contain a lot of rookies with all of those out.

GPB

As per my post on Kwini's thread Poulter looks like the latest casualty of double dipping. You need to play extremely well every time you tee it up or a play lots of events in a pretty average manner.

Poulter and many others are currently unable to do either with the double dipping schedules they have chosen.


I will say it again as it has failed to sink in for many on this board. The Days of double dipping for those not called McIlroy could be over.

If you "play lots of events in a pretty average manner" you shouldn't be d/d'ing.
But Poulter's problem has been spending more time on his Ferraris than the golfcourse.

Mac,
Imagine you'd be in deep weeds at work if you didn't show up for months on end - same with Golf; pity Poults didn't realise that.

Kwini

Why are you loathe to admit that there are no examples of successful (be our previously agreed definition) double dipping for at least 2-3 years? (excluding McIlroy)

Are you excluding Rose and Garcia also? And Koepka and Oosthuizen? And Stenson and Schwartzel?

or Luke Donald.

Rose and Garcia have been double dipping since before McIlroy (and possibly Stenson)

Oostie and Schwartzel have suffered terrible drops in the OWGR since embarking on double dipping.


Good shout on Koepka, for the moment he is doing ok. Will he be able to keep it up next year?

Super

We are looking for examples where the player has maintained or improved their OWGR while double dipping? Not sure that applies to Donald in the last 3+ years.

So, apart from irrigation, sanitation, roads, medicine and democracy, what have the Romans ever done for us?

King Louis is ranked #14 in the owgr's, despite injuries. Where do you expect him to be? He's only ever finished one year ranked better than 20th.

Poluter's situation is probably more arrogance or overconfidence in his game (like Kaymer) instead of just dumb.  But yeah... when a plan don't work out... in 20-20 hindsight it sure as heck looks dumb.

Bottom line is the OWGR situation obviously caught him and his team off guard. Going into the British Masters he was #42 and would have had to have known THEN he was in OWGR trouble for the WGC  (ET entry close date is 2 weeks before the event compared to only 5 days before on the PGAT).  Heck, even our resident OWGR expert didn't realize it until a few days ago either.  My guess is TeamPoults 1) didn't think he could fall that far in 2 weeks and 2) expected to play well in the British Masters at one of his favorite venues.  And thus by the time he realized he was up s**t-creek, deadline for Hong Kong was past.  Oh well...

And in that regard... I have to at least mostly agree with GPB on this dual tour thing.  IMO Rory's recent comments about RC qualification and Casey's recent actions illustrate what a big problem this dual-touring thing is starting to be for the top Euro players.  Then we have Kaymer's situation  not meeting his PGAT minimum, and now this.   Since I had a chance a few years ago to really sit down and study it...  its been my opinion that except for the best of the best, the dual touring deal causes most players to under-perform on TWO tours at once.  Those who don't play enough on the PGAT have a lot harder time advancing to the FedEx Cup finals... and those who don't play enough on the ET put themselves behind the 8-ball in the R2D.   It's not just a matter of qualifying for the 8 big co-sanctions (even though that's a huge part of it)... it's also unless these guys have STELLAR play in the 8 co-sanctions... they're under way too much pressure to play extra well in the other limited starts they have on each tour.  This year only 5 dual tour guys making the FECup is evidence of that (2 of them Rose & Koepka who play a lot more heavily on the PGAT over the ET)

I think it's getting to the point that unless you're a really, really top-dog... a player needs to be thinking in terms of a roughly 30 event schedule to give himself a reasonably fair shot at performing well on either or both tours.   Even trying to play 24-25 events (like Poulter was trying to do and  only gets them 4-5 total events over both minimums), is cutting it too close.

Robo:  To be honest, I knew Poulter could be in trouble after the British Masters.  I just didn't want to be Chicken Little on a British-centric forum (or in other places).

It was pretty obvious that Charl, Hunter, and Barnrat were going to pass him after two rounds.  Then after Sullivan had a big lead after Round 3 that the perfect storm could be aligning.

When you are tight-rope walking like Poulter has been doing, you need to be watching everything that can knock you off your perch.

I agree with GPB also; thing with Poulter is that he's always been at least one step ahead "of the law", but now his complacency has caught up with him.
He always used to be known as the guy who calculated his owgr currency from his smart phone on the course; strange that he should have been caught out like this.
Somewhere, Tim Finchem is smiling . . . . . . .

I stand to be corrected as usual, but I think the only way for Poulter to qualify for the HSBC is to win in Hong Kong. As GPB mentioned 11 people dropping out for him to get on as a reserve is stretching it.

Euro officials woke Beem after his flight from Texas and asked him to give up his spot.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/c9e3b398baef48e48c98154e1c4c5d05/beems-decision-allows-poulter-keep-european-tour-card

GPB wrote:Robo:  To be honest, I knew Poulter could be in trouble after the British Masters.  I just didn't want to be Chicken Little on a British-centric forum (or in other places).

It was pretty obvious that Charl, Hunter, and Barnrat were going to pass him after two rounds.  Then after Sullivan had a big lead after Round 3 that the perfect storm could be aligning.

When you are tight-rope walking like Poulter has been doing, you need to be watching everything that can knock you off your perch.

i get that. But the problem was Poulter had already missed the Hong Kong deadline before he ever teed it up at the British Masters. And like you said... it was kind of a perfect storm that caught up with him... and by the time he realized it, it was too late to do anything about it.

And I agree with the other comments in this thread about "walking the tightrope".... but in the end... that's exactly what a lot of the dual tour guys are doing... anything goes wrong along the way and they got issues. This season... we got guys like Westwood, Poulter, Franny, Luke & G-Mack all with potential BIG issues looming. New member Lahiri is running some risks himself.

Very decent of Beem.

super_realist wrote:Very decent of Beem.

Indeed

Inco I think (hope) Super was being sarcastic. In what way would it be considered a decent thing to do?

Beem should have questioned why the European tour wasn't bending what would be considered fair for all the other players not quite in the field?

robo,
Westwood is clearly walking the owgr tightrope but playing both Tours no longer. Just European Tour.

The others badly need a good win, and soon!

McLaren wrote:Inco I think (hope) Super was being sarcastic.  In what way would it be considered a decent thing to do?

Beem should have questioned why the European tour wasn't bending what would be considered fair for all the other players not quite in the field?

I would have thought that was obvious Mac. Beem is not a policeman for the Euro tour, on his actions alone it was clearly decent of him to help out a fellow player. I'm not sure if any of the other players on the bubble faced the same consequences Poulter did, but considering that Beem is American, and that he could potentially have refused and kept one of Europe's best match players out of the Ryder Cup next year, I think he is to be applauded for being so sporting about it.

I think it's extremely good of Beem, and I don't know why he feels meeting Poulter would be awkward. I'm sure Poulter will be extremely grateful, and whilst a Ferrari might be pushing it I'm sure Poulter will make sure his trip is fully paid for etc

robopz wrote:But the problem was Poulter had already missed the Hong Kong deadline before he ever teed it up at the British Masters.

Deadline to enter the Hong Kong tournament was on or before October 7th?

And even if it was, obviously there are ways to get around that deadline as the last two days exhibit.  When he nearly whiffied on OWGR points he and his team should have realized he was vulnerable.

Mac- may I take from your non-response that you have conceded the argument, and that Rich Beem's actions were indeed decent?

Mac, you only have to read the article to see that Beem did a quite noble act and the context of how it occurred.

Well done Beem, I don't think it will make a difference to Poulter being in the Ryder Cup as his form is woeful, but it was nice of Beem to stand aside.

Inco

No, it was an unnecessary act and it is slightly worrying how easily Poulter circumvented the normal rules of entry.


Super

I agree, Poulter will be out of, or very close to being out of, the world top 100 by the time the Ryder cup comes around.

Mac, sometimes people just do nice things whether they are necessary or not.
It's called empathy. You should try it some time.

Super

Are you kidding me? I am surprised you even know about the concept of empathy?

kwinigolfer wrote:robo,
Westwood is clearly walking the owgr tightrope but playing both Tours no longer. Just European Tour.

The others badly need a good win, and soon!

Thanks on the Westwood deal... I hadn't see where he'd formally given up membership. IMO wise move in his situation. Lee's done quite well in his career feasting on lesser events... especially in Asia... He needs to be playing where he can rack up points to stay OWGR eligible for the biggies... and that's obviously not the U.S. right now for whatever reasons... gamewise or personal.

If nothing else through all this deal... Rich Beem shows me that he "gets it". He knows who and what he is and isn't as a professional golfer these days. Why play when in some meaningless tournament for him when it can be so important for someone else.

And I've been a bit critical of the ET management of late... but despite the criticism Pelly is getting from some quarters (like Yelling for example), IMO ET's support of Rory and Poulter in these recent situations is EXACTLY what they should have done.

Rose goes to 5th in the rankings, at least temporarily.  Fowler needs a top 40 finish to stay at the #5 spot.

At worst, Rose rises to 6th.

Fitzpatrick should either 56th or 57th.

FWIW, Poulter rises 50th, also temporarily.  Henley and Moore have a legit chance to pass him.

Stegmaier would get inside the top 150, Hoffmann inside the top 60.

Walker as high as 12th.
Na as high as 15th.
Campbell into the Top 100.

to #75.