OWGR - Week#28

Congrats to Luke Donald and Steve Stricker - for once the top ranked in the two tournaments are the actual winners!
Luke consolidates his #1 position and he could now only be overtaken by Lee after the Open next week.
Fredrik A Hed's 2nd place in Scotland (worth more than Stricker's victory) means he jumps up more than 50 places to#76.
Phil and Kuchar are now extremely close (less than a thousand of a point).
So the OWGR after week#28 and just before the Open Championship should look like this:

1 Luke Donald
2 Lee Westwood
3 Martin Kaymer
4 Rory McIlroy
5 Steve Stricker
6 Phil Mickelson
7 Matt Kuchar
8 Jason Day
9 Graeme McDowell
10 Nick Watney
11 Carl Schwartzel
12 Dustin Johnson
13 K.J. Choi
14 Paul Casey
15 Bubba Watson
16 Ian Poulter
17 Adam Scott
18 Robert Karlsson
19 Tiger Woods
20 Hunter Mahan
21 Retief Goosen
22 Francesco Molinari
23 Jim Furyk
24 Ernie Els
25 Alvaro Quiros
26 Martin Laird
27 David Toms
28 Miguel Jimenez
29 Matteo Manassero
30 Kim Kyung-Tae
31 Justin Rose
32 Louis Oosthuizen
33 Zach Johnson
34 Tim Clark
35 Y.E. Yang
36 Ryan Moore
37 Edoardo Molinari
38 Bo Van Pelt
39 Peter Hanson
40 Robert Allenby
41 Geoff Ogilvy
42 Gary Woodland
43 Brandt Snedeker
44 Anders Hansen
45 Bill Haas
46 Jonathan Byrd
47 Rory Sabbatini
48 Ryan Palmer
49 Aaron Baddeley
50 Ryo Ishikawa
---------------------------
51 Ben Crane
52 Rickie Fowler
53 Sergio Garcia
54 Webb Simpson
55 Mark Wilson
56 Ross Fisher
57 Padraig Harrington
58 Jeff Overton
59 Lucas Glover
60 J.B. Holmes
61 Charley Hoffman
62 Fredrik Jacobsen
63 Vijay Singh
64 Stephen Marino
65 Hiroyuki Fujita
66 Kevin Na
67 Brendan Jones
68 Yuta Ikeda
69 Robert Garrigus
70 Jason Dufner
71 Nicolas Colsaerts
72 Camilo Villegas
73 Anthony Kim
74 Simon Dyson
75 Angel Cabrera
76 Fredrik A. Hed
77 Scot Verplank
78 Raphael Jacquelin
79 Stewart Cink
80 Thomas Bjorn
...

Just had a look at the field for Sweden in ten days time: Bubba and Dustin are scheduled for action. Quite a strong turnout with Karlsson and Hanson scheduled plus the usual European Tour suspects.

Cheers kwini.

When the Sweeds have decided to move their flagship tournament to the beautiful Bro Hof course a couple of years ago it was all done with Tiger in mind (when he was still their 'son-in-law') and they were really excited and pumped up about the future of the tournament. But one car crash and a 9-iron blow later, how much things have changed... I'm glad that guys like Bubba and Dustin are going there this year and really hope they can give it a well needed boost for future years...

is Bubba definitley playing? he cast a bit of doubt on it when he was giving his infamous post round interviews in Paris!
quick question guys... i presume im wrong... but I had a feeling that if the competition wasnt the full 72 holes there was less OWGR points on offer? i vaguely remember something like this a few years back when Mcginley won a Welsh Open.

hend0,
Bubba is committed to play, and right now he's on the entry list for Sweden the following week, Dustin Johnson too.

I think the owgr rules for "abbreviated" tournaments might have been revised in recent years.
My understanding is that a 36-hole event would be subject to some revision of points awarded - Adam Scott won a 36-hole LA Open a few years ago and was even denied an "official" win. But I defer to princedrac who is the expert.

I believe thats the second 54 hole event Luke has bagged. Didnt he first win on the PGA tour with a rain curtailled event ? Or should this question be on the ask the expert thread ?

Correct Diggers, you da man! In fact it was the predecessor to this week's "opposite field" event in Mississippi.

It's an interesting point and thought a bit about this the other day when I saw a press conf. at Castle Stuart regarding the rain delay and a reporter asked the tournament officials if there will be a reduction in the money prizes if they will only play 54 holes, etc... The answer btw was that they consulted with the sponsor and they decided there won't be any reduction in prizes...

But in relation to the owgr point allocation, I will have to find out if there is a clear rule about it in these situations. All I can say now is that in McGinley's case which hend0 mentioned, he was in fact awarded the full 24 points due for the Welsh Open at the time in 2001 (event was reduced to 36-holes)....

According to the owgr site:
"Points are reduced by 25% for tournaments curtailed to 36 holes because of inclement weather or other reasons."

I know about that kwini, but I'm trying to see if I can confirm when that rule was introduced, because as I said, it appears that it was not applied 10 years ago. I know some of the regulations have been amended around 2007, but I'm not sure if this particular one dates since then or before that...

#1,2&3 owgr possibilities this week:

#1. Lee is the only one who could bother Luke at #1, but even he will need to either:
- finish solo 2nd and Luke somewhere outside top 20
- win it and Luke to finish in a tie for 2nd or worse.

#2. Any of the current top 5 (Luke, Lee, Kaymer, Rory and Stricker) could end up at #2
#3. All from current top 10 apart from Luke and GMac could end up at #3...

Tiger's best 'result' after this week will be at #20, but it's very likely he'll end up outside top 20...

Imagine this week's Viking Classic will be the very definition of a tournament whose owgr allocation is subsidised; I'm sure there will have been Molinari- or Sim-era Nationwide/Challenge Tour events which should have had more points available.

I think this time last year 2Gloves was wining on the Nationwide... could be a chance for him to go one small step better this week. Senden is the top rank as far as I can see it, with Slocum and 2Gloves the only other top 100 around.

A tight battle between 2Gloves and Dicky Pride on Sunday could even still a couple of headlines...

Lee and Luke didn't exactly cover themselves in glory this week, but their MC's mean that Luke will keep his #1 spot.
Lee could be dethroned from #2 only by Kaymer, Rory and Stricker, but only with a win - Rory looks a bit far out now, but Kaymer and Stricker still with a shout...

The Viking in US is hugely subsidised at 24 (technically should be somewhere inside the 10 pts bracket!), but with a win there, 2Gloves could be propelled somewhere close to #70 in the world...

He needs to defy the law of his Major final round averages first, but a win from Dustin would have him leapfrog into about 5th or 6th.

Hopefully that won't happen, still hoping the string of European Tour wins continues.

With a win this week:
- Dustin could move as high as 5th,
- Fowler " " " " " 17th
- Clarke " " " " " 30th (I like the sound of this one!)

One big owgr loser today was Sergio; would think that with Fowler and Glover up there, plus the possibility of DC winning, Sergio needs at least a top ten to reach the owgr top fifty and be in position to qualify for Firestone - that is a key to the rest of his season.

Agreed, kwini. As it stands now, Webb Simpson would move ahead of him as well with Bjorn just a tad behind...

There's one piece of statistics celebrating the Open Champ. performance of the current #1 and #2 players in the world...

It's the first time since the introduction of the world ranking system when both #1 and #2 in the world at the time, have missed the cut in a major!

Quite understandably, the silence has been deafening on their tweeter accounts after Friday...

Luke should have the opportunity to

Ooops! pressed 'send' by mistake there...

So, Luke should have the opportunity to redeem himself quickly if he plays in Canada next week. As for Lee's plans... no idea. Maybe he decides to come and play the Irish Open in two weeks time...?

Sergio's ticket to Firestone must be a rather tight squeeze.
But very nice to see Thomas Bjorn earn a trip to Augusta, as well as to Lytham.