OWGR - Week #2

I think it would be fair to say that it hasn't been one of the most exhilarating weeks, but still, congratulations to Johnson Wagner and Branden Grace for their deserved, albeit rather unexpected wins!

Wagner jumps up more than 100 places to #92 and Harrison Frazar is the second new top 100 this week (#82) as a result of his T2 finish. Nice upward movements for the other 3 joint runner up finishers at Sony - Howell Three Sticks, SO'H and Pettersson, who is returning into the top 100. But a bunch of other players are slipping quietly out of the picture this week: Ross Fisher, Tommy 2Gloves, Tim Clark, Steve Marino... hopefully not for a long time. And it's a very nice jump up into the 160s for young Branden Grace from South Africa.
Otherwise, the European quartet at the top remains undisturbed, Tiger stays at #25, but the slump continues for Padraig, looking now destined to dive down into yet another owgr 'decade', the 90's, by the time he will tee off next week in Abu Dhabi...

The OWGR table after week #2 should look like this:

1 Luke Donald
2 Lee Westwood
3 Rory McIlroy
4 Martin Kaymer
5 Steve Stricker
6 Webb Simpson
7 Adam Scott
8 Dustin Johnson
9 Charl Schwartzel
10 Jason Day
---------------------------
11 Matt Kuchar
12 Nick Watney
13 Graeme McDowell
14 K.J. Choi
15 Phil Mickelson
16 Justin Rose
17 Sergio Garcia
18 Hunter Mahan
19 Ian Poulter
20 Paul Casey
21 Alvaro Quiros
22 Bubba Watson
23 Kim Kyung-Tae
24 Bill Haas
25 Tiger Woods
26 Keegan Bradley
27 Louis Oosthuizen
28 Robert Karlsson
29 Simon Dyson
30 Bo Van Pelt
31 David Toms
32 Rickie Fowler
33 Martin Laird
34 Bae Sang-Moon
35 Thomas Bjorn
36 Brandt Snedeker
37 Anders Hansen
38 Geoff Ogilvy
39 Jason Dufner
40 Francesco Molinari
41 Fredrik Jacobson
42 John Senden
43 Zach Johnson
44 Peter Hanson
45 Miguel Jimenez
46 Aaron Baddeley
47 Y.E. Yang
48 Ryo Ishikawa
49 Darren Clarke
50 Gonzalo Fdez-C.
----------------------------
51 Retief Goosen
52 Jonathan Byrd
53 Gary Woodland
54 Jim Furyk
55 Ben Crane
56 Ryan Moore
57 Mark Wilson
58 Greg Chalmers
59 Matteo Manassero
60 Robert Allenby
61 Charles Howell III
62 Toru Taniguchi
63 Rory Sabbatini
64 Joost Luiten
----------------------------
65 Alexander Noren
66 Sean O'Hair
67 Edoardo Molinari
68 Kevin Na
69 Hiroyuki Fujita
70 Vijay Singh
71 Ernie Els
72 Chez Reavie
73 Lucas Glover
74 Ryan Palmer
75 Jeff Overton
76 Nicolas Colsaerts
77 Pablo Larazabal
78 Yuta Ikeda
79 George Coetzee
80 Jacko Van Zyl
81 Carl Pettersson
82 Harrison Frazar
83 Thomas Aiken
84 Anthony Kim
85 Brendan Jones
86 Spencer Levin
87 Paul Lawrie
88 Tetsuji Hiratsuka
89 Padraig Harrington
90 Gregory Havret
91 Charley Hoffman
92 Johnson Wagner
93 Chris Kirk
94 David Lynn
95 Koumei Oda
96 Jamie Donaldson
97 Camilo Villegas
98 Richie Ramsay
99 Scot Verplank
100 Michael Hoey
------------------------------
101 Marcus Fraser
102 Fredrik A. Hed
103 D.A. Points
...

Not much movement this week, pd. Plenty of golfers finding they are better off not playing, Tiger for one obviously, but DC moving in to the Top 50 another!

Things should start moving at last this next fortnight.

Indeed, the first two weeks have been rather frugal in terms of owgr points on offer on the two main tours, but the 3rd week looks already a bit 'meatier':

Week	# 1	# 2	# 3	Comments
PGA Tour	38	32	44	OK
European Tour	20	22	32	OK

This week marks a pretty clear owgr swing in PGA Tour's favour compared to the corresponding fields last year:
~ 46 pts for Humana in 2012 compared to 32 pts for Bob Hope in 2011
~ 30 pts for Volvo Champs in 2012 (South Africa) compared to 38 pts for Volvo Champs in 2011 (Bahrain)

Surprised at the relatively rich pickings at the "Humana", but am also surprised at some relatively high-ranked golfers who won't be there, Bubba Watson (good chance to win there two years ago) and Gary Woodland (lost in play-off last year) to name but two.

Ominous sign that Tim Clark isn't in the field, Oberholser also, and was hoping to see Mike Weir's name in the line-up.

For any Padraig followers that are still out there, he can jump up as high as #57 with a win, or drop to #94 (or worse) if he finishes last. He definitely needs a strong start of his season to get things back on track...

Meanwhile here's a picture of him with a cheetah (!?) from South Africa....

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/padraig-tamed-tiger-now-he-catches-up-with-cheetah-2991834.html

The other interesting bit there is that the FTI logo is gone from his cap... Hard times!

There is something annoying about Harrington, whether it's his stupid walk or simpleton looks I'm not sure.

PD,

The goal for Harri must be the WGC Matchplay. To get there, he will need either a win or about 3 Top 5 finishes and fast............................

Not playing must be helping Rory, his money chasing schedule mean he has a massive divisor for events played. Although that is the case with a lot of the chubby stable with many of them over 50 (or ex chubby in rory’s case). I wonder if he has over worked them in search of some extra cash.

Will we see a more sensible schedule from the horizon rory?

Mac,
Before there was a limit on the divisor, Jeev Milkha Singh used regularly to clock up close to 70 tournaments over the two year span. 60 events was not unusual, even for many pretty good players, Vijay for instance before his body started to give out. Singh Singh, but it certainly wasn't just a Singh thingh.

super_realist wrote:There is something annoying about Harrington, whether it's his stupid walk or simpleton looks I'm not sure.

We agree on something, there may be a glimmer of hope for a match?

Princedracula,

Can you help me understand how the maximum number of tournaments of 52 works in practice.

Assuming a player plays 60 qualifying tournaments over 2 years. I had assumed all his points are added up (after adjustment) and then devided by 52. If so then I think this is a fair benefit to those that play a lot and encouragement for other to play more of the lower ranking events.

However, I just check the rankings. None of the players are credited with playing more than 52 evens. Counted Jimenez torunaments and only 52 listed (I had assumed he was a player who normally plays more than 26/year).

I guess that either the most recent 52 count or the 52 best scoring. Either would result in the similar benefit as above, just puzzled which method they selected.

ScottieD18 wrote:...I guess that either the most recent 52 count ...

That's the correct one, Scottie. Any events previous to the most recent 52, become a thing of the past... and technically they don't count anymore in current ranking.

If you want to see exactly how many events a player has played in the past 2 years, you can open the pdf file on the OWGR site, for example:

http://dps.endavadigital.net/owgr/doc/content/archive/2012/owgr02f2012.pdf

The last column there indicates the actual number of events played, while the 'Events played (divisor)' column indicates the divisor that is used in the calculation (always between 40 and 52)...

With a field of only 35 and 30 owgr pts to the winner, means that everyone in the field should leave with some owgr points. Certainly not as bad as Chevron or Nedbank, but very similar to the likes of Hyundai, FedEx Tour Champ, etc ...

Princedracula,

Thanks for that.

I see Ryo Ishikawa is the player in the top 50 who has played the most with 68. Maybe he should cut his schedule and the quality may improve. Surpised to see a few yanks are in the high 50's and low 60's but I guess they have less travelling and seldom change time zones between tournaments (not counting internal US time zones of course).

I thing picking the most recent 52 events is the fairest method, but I would have favoured taking the best 52 tournaments as I think the top players are cutting back in playing smaller events (with fewer ranking points) to protect their ranking and its the smaller events that need the top boys playing to secure their sponsors and to improve their TV ratings.

Very good point Scottie . . . . . .

Blistering start for Colsaerts; I'm thinking (a long way ahead obviously) that a win would pretty much cement his place in the Top 64 for the MatchPlay, but not enough to reach the top 50.
Big tournament for Luiten also.

Indeed, amazing start. He played his last 11 holes in 9-under!!!
A win would lift him to ~#55 at best...

Promissing start from Padraig, but Ernie, Charl and Karlsson looking pretty rusty out there...

Tom Lewis finished 5 under. He must fancy his chances of a top 3 or win given the limited field and age of some of the players.

A good recovery for Monty bouncing back with 2 birdies after the double bogey. New golf clubs must be working well.

Why given the age? Apart from perhaps Monty and Olazabal, who both played well, everyone is in this field on merit, from Manassero to Jimenez.

Shocking snowman at the last hole from Matteo...
Podge looking better all the time... 6-under. Birdied 3 of the par 5s so far, so something seems to have got better from last year. A note of caution though, remember last year he started the season with a great 1st round 65 in Abu Dhabi and then got DQ. It all went downhill from there as we know. Hopefully that won't happen again ...

Ooops! Bad drive at the last...

Ned,

I guess what I meant was the field has a high percentage of older guys who have seldom contended in the last year or so. The entry qualification has attracted a lot of guys who have already seen their better days.

I hope the event grows and the field gets stronger in future years.

Prince - does the course make good viewing. I think its set-up to record so wondering if it's worth a watch tonight or just wait till the weekend.

princedracula wrote:Ooops! Bad drive at the last...

Oops...7 !! New year, same Par 5 issue!

Simon Dyson has quietly gone about sneaking up the rankings over the last few years. Didn't realise he was as high as 29. Has he been higher, or is it only recently that he has climbed there?

pd, if you think that was a bad finish, check out the Open qualifier elsewhere in SA... Holland's Sluiter 2 clear of the field with 6 to play, with three places up for grabs. Having played his first 30 holes in -8, he plays his last 6 in +8, five fives and a quadruple-bogey seven. The qualifiers were Da Silva the Brazilian, and a couple of little-known Saffas, Veenstra and Georgiou, in the end.

raycastleunited wrote:Simon Dyson has quietly gone about sneaking up the rankings over the last few years. Didn't realise he was as high as 29. Has he been higher, or is it only recently that he has climbed there?

His highest position in the last two years (and if I am not mistaken, ever). Check the owgr site and click on his name:


Thailand Golf Championship Asa 51 2011 T4 8.64 1 8.64 29
Dubai World Championship Eur 50 2011 T46 1.65 1 1.65 33
Nedbank Golf Challenge Afr 49 2011 9 5.70 1 5.70 32
SA Open Championship Afr 48 2011 MC 0.00 1 0.00 31
Barclays Singapore Open Asa 46 2011 T33 1.66 1 1.66 31
World Golf Championships - HSBC Champions Eur 45 2011 T16 5.27 1 5.27 31
Portugal Masters Eur 42 2011 MC 0.00 1 0.00 30
Alfred Dunhill Links Championship Eur 40 2011 T9 6.31 0.9783 6.17 28
KLM Open Eur 37 2011 1 40.00 0.9457 37.83 28
Omega European Masters Eur 36 2011 T16 3.85 0.9348 3.60 55
Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles Eur 35 2011 T15 1.98 0.9239 1.83 56
PGA CHAMPIONSHIP USA 33 2011 T51 2.20 0.9022 1.98 53
World Golf Championships - Bridgestone Invitational USA 32 2011 T33 3.08 0.8913 2.75 49
Irish Open presented by Discover Ireland Eur 31 2011 1 28.00 0.8804 24.65 48
The 140th OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP Eur 29 2011 T9 14.00 0.8587 12.02 66
The Barclays Scottish Open Eur 28 2011 T25 2.56 0.8478 2.17 74
Alstom Open de France Eur 27 2011 MC 0.00 0.837 0.00 73
BMW International Open Eur 26 2011 MC 0.00 0.8261 0.00 72
The Celtic Manor Wales Open Eur 23 2011 T20 1.75 0.7935 1.39 71
BMW PGA Championship Eur 22 2011 3 25.60 0.7826 20.03 70
Open de Espana Eur 19 2011 T5 4.28 0.75 3.21 83
Ballantine's Championship Asa 18 2011 T35 1.58 0.7391 1.17 84
Volvo China Open One 17 2011 T52 0.00 0.7283 0.00 83
Maybank Malaysian Open Asa 16 2011 7 7.56 0.7174 5.42 81
Trophee Hassan II Eur 14 2011 T29 0.00 0.6957 0.00 86
Open de Andalucia de Golf Eur 13 2011 MC 0.00 0.6848 0.00 82
Sicilian Open Eur 12 2011 T5 3.96 0.6739 2.67 78
Omega Dubai Desert Classic Eur 7 2011 T28 2.32 0.6196 1.44 71
Commercialbank Qatar Masters presented by Dolphin Energy Eur 6 2011 73 0.00 0.6087 0.00 71
Volvo Golf Champions Eur 5 2011 MC 0.00 0.5978 0.00 67
Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship Eur 4 2011 MC 0.00 0.587 0.00 66
DUBAI WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP Eur 48 2010 T32 2.44 0.5 1.22 61
UBS Hong Kong Open Asa 47 2010 T2 19.00 0.4891 9.29 63
Barclays Singapore Open Asa 46 2010 MC 0.00 0.4783 0.00 78
Andalucia Masters Eur 44 2010 MC 0.00 0.4565 0.00 73
Portugal Masters Eur 42 2010 T17 2.56 0.4348 1.11 70
Alfred Dunhill Links Championship Eur 41 2010 T5 9.92 0.4239 4.21 68
KLM Open Eur 37 2010 MC 0.00 0.3804 0.00 70
Omega European Masters Eur 36 2010 T60 0.00 0.3696 0.00 69
Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles Eur 35 2010 6 6.00 0.3587 2.15 65
Czech Open 2010 Eur 34 2010 T5 5.28 0.3478 1.84 68
US PGA CHAMPIONSHIP USA 33 2010 T12 10.63 0.337 3.58 70
WGC - Bridgestone Invitational USA 32 2010 T71 0.00 0.3261 0.00 84
3 Irish Open Eur 31 2010 MC 0.00 0.3152 0.00 83
THE 139th OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP Eur 29 2010 T48 2.40 0.2935 0.70 75
The Barclays Scottish Open Eur 28 2010 MC 0.00 0.2826 0.00 77
Alstom Open de France Eur 27 2010 MC 0.00 0.2717 0.00 76
US OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP USA 25 2010 MC 0.00 0.25 0.00 74
The Celtic Manor Wales Open Eur 23 2010 T18 2.95 0.2283 0.67 71
Madrid Masters Eur 22 2010 T10 4.17 0.2174 0.91 70
BMW PGA CHAMPIONSHIP Eur 21 2010 T34 2.43 0.2065 0.50 68
BMW Italian Open Eur 19 2010 WD 0.00 0.1848 0.00 69

Ned, that sounds pretty depressing all right for a finish...

ray, Simon Dyson has been only slightly higher in the past, to #28 as you can see from themightyone's post, just after his win at the KLM Open (and after winning the Irish Open a few weeks before that) last year... Heard quite a few people predicting a great season for him this year, not so sure myself... Saw him at the Irish Open and he played beautifuly and can see him winning more tournaments for sure. Can't see him being a top 10 guy, but who knows... He's not a very long driver of the ball and that can be a problem sometimes, unless you're Luke Donald....

I would suggest a win or a second place finish for Colsaerts will all but guarantee him a spot in the WGC Match Play. Same goes for Luiten and Els. Harrington will be needing a lot of points to make it into the WGC field in the next weeks (a win this week will probably be sufficient, although I do not fancy him winning this week's tournament)

Prince/Ray: whoops: Simon Dyson has a career high of #28 of course, sorry for the mix up. He will overtake Karlsson this week no matter what his finish will be and both Oosthuizen and Bradley are within touching distance, so I predict him to sit in a career high #26 spot on the next rankings

and another whoops: I thought Karlsson was not in the field but I apparently was mistaken (very hard to overlook someone in a field as large as the Volvo Champions), so my remark as to Dyson guaranteed to overtake Karlsson is not true.

It's a bold prediction TMO, specially considering that Oosty is 6 shots ahead of him after the 1st round, but of course, anything can happen... Karlsson also finished very strong today's round, so he may feel much more confident tomorrow...

Chubbers predicted a strong year from Dyson.
But then, he would wouldn't he??!!

Haven't heard of any last minute w/d's. Matt Every is "first alternate" so, if you see him on the "leaderboard", you'll know someone dropped out.

South Africans 1,2,3 for the moment. Time Ernie got the message too.

Today looks like the Amazing Grace wants to do it again (he could even make the top 100 with another win this week)... but not so amazing so far from Colsaerts or Lewis. Goosen hasn't won yet this season, but at least he shows some good consistency by being there or there abouts every week... But probably one of the most amazing things in SA at the moment is to see Ollie up there close to the top, I hope he can keep up the form and momentum untill Sunday afternoon... Solid recoveries today by DC, Charl, Dyson and Karlsson. But that 18th hole seems to cause quite a few casualties until now, so better let's wait till they finish...

Yeh, great to see Ollie on a leaderboard again.

The last Captain, Monty, is slidding back after a promising starts yesterday. I saw him play one shot last night. Looks like he's borrowed Laura Davies's body this season.

Morning kwini, doesn't look like the 'fast' start that Ernie was hoping for so far, but there is still time left to turn things around... Podge gets a birdie at the 10th and hopefully he'll find a few more on the back nine... Super round from DC, no probs for him at the 18th with birdies both rounds, maybe Chubby's gamble will prove justified in the end...

Two birdies for Ernie, two bogeys for the Goose. Bloggers curse, sorry Retief.

Lovely to see Olly up there; possible Captain's Choice for Medinah, or a reminder that others are still brushing the cobwebs off their game?

Pathetic Bogey Bogey Double Finish from Harrington...............................

+1 on his 10 Par 5's played so far this week..........................

Shocking bogey, bogey, double bogey finish for Padraig Harrington.

John, Snap!

kwinigolfer wrote:Lovely to see Olly up there; possible Captain's Choice for Medinah, or a reminder that others are still brushing the cobwebs off their game?

Has a captain ever picked themselves as one of their picks before?

Except it happens too often to be "shocking" anymore!!!

del,
Ryder Cup Captains choosing themselves? Certainly not in recent times though some Americans have played well in their Captaincy year, Toms Kite and Lehman among them . . . .

John C,
Perhaps Els and Harrington will be paired for Round 3? No doubt they'll have a lot in common, much to talk about!

Yep, unfortunately that's more like 'typical' rather than shocking... Perhaps they should build 15-hole courses for Padraig from now on... It's a tricky course, but on a day when Slattery and Grace (no disrespect) are scoring 8 and 7-under, there is no excuse for someone with his experience to wobble like that at the end...

I have yet to hear a golf journalist ask Harrington about his shocking play at Par 5's in the last few years........................there is a misconception that Harrington is ahead of his peers on the "mental" side of the game, when, in my opinion, i believe the opposite to be the case...............

Nice round from DC today......i could stand to be corrected but i don't think he's bettered -5 for any round since Sandwich.............................

Perhaps Padraig will figure out he still has plenty to gain from getting his "mental" game a bit more positive.
Because he has a great deal to lose if he doesn't. He seems to recognise this on his website preview of this week, very well aware that he's not in the MatchPlay.

His schedule goes: Fancourt, Abu Dhabi, AT&T Pebble Beach. Hope he also plays Riviera where he's enjoyed decent results in the past.

Without any big improvement he'll miss out on the Doral WGC as well which could mean he'll have to start playing some smaller tournaments in the States to squeeze in his required 15, especially as he'll miss Bridgestone too unless he scores a win or some top results.

John Cregan wrote:Nice round from DC today......i could stand to be corrected but i don't think he's bettered -5 for any round since Sandwich.............................

According to Chubby, DC started a new intense fitness program with same people that are looking after LW, so maybe that will begin to give some results... And since you brought it up, he actually didn't get any -5 rounds at RStG, but he did actually get one after that at the WGC HSBC. Hopefully more of these will follow...

Final count shows that Humana stops just short of 46 pts, so only 44 pts to the winner there. And for Volvo, did a lazy count first time and forgot to add Karlsson, so it will be worth 32 pts in the end....

Every little bit of parity helps!
Still a lot to gain for some of the Volvo veterans . . .

No doubt, Ollie for one got payed in owgr currency only 4 times in the last 2 years, so this will be very welcome indeed...