OWGR - Week #45

It's been a week when the new generation took center stage, while some of the older stalwarts on the golf stage seem to be ready to bow out (hopefully only temporarily)...

Eurpean/Asian Tour
A wonderful and most impressive win for the very young Italian Matteo Manassero at the Singapore Open, reminded us why this kid took the golfing world by storm a couple of years ago. To overcome a field of that strength and then to overcome a player of Oosthuizen's stature in a very tight playoff, in the manner he did, it was very impressive indeed. So it's a just reward that he is catapulted straight back into the top 50 in the world at such a critical time (at #46), and I really look forward to seeing him competing in most, if not all, of the important events next season (he already qualifies for next year's HSBC and Bridgestone WGCs after this win). For king Louis it was yet another excellent tournament, bringing him up to #6 in the world, the highest of his career, although the fact that he is struggling somewhat to close many of these events after looking ominous for most of the time must worry him a little bit. Matteo's great win was somewhat overshadowed by Rory's last round charge and superb eagle putt at the last hole, which apart from giving him yet another 'podium' finish, proved to seal the Race to Dubai for him. It also completes a long list with virtually all the important accolades (some more relevant and meaingful than others) that one could hope for at the end of a season. He has distanced himself to almost 4 points from Tiger in second place (this is now the 3rd largest ever 1st/2nd relative difference since OWGR was introduced) and has almost twice as many points than Lee Westwood in 4th place. Otherwise, another good result in Singapore fo Adam Scott, which is good enough to move him ahead of Louis and Rose to #5 in the world,while Bjorn's good result should ensure more or less his top 50 position by the end of the year...

PGA Tour
The 28-year old rookie Charlie Beljan said after coming back from the 'dead' yesterday that he can't remember much of what happened the day before. If that's true, than this should really be a week to remember for him, recording his first win and making sure he has a full time job next year. He will also jump almost 200 places in the rankings somewhere around #160. Garrigus was the highest ranked in that field and he confirmed with that T2 finish, but the weakness of the field means that it only helps him to move up two places to #40.

Japan Tour
Congratulations also to young Ryo Ishikawa (remember him?), for his first win after exactly 2 years! Came at a desperate time for him as he was almost on his way out of the top 100, helping him to move back up to #71.

Talking of desperate times, spare a thought for two of the key figures in European golf over the last couple of decades, as Robert Karlsson and the Mechanic are dropping fast (the former less graciously than the latter, it has to be said) closer and closer to the brink (currently at #99 and #98 respectively). And you can add Geoff Ogilvy to that mini list as well as he is clearly on his way out of the top 50, and stranger still, I couldn't find his name on the entry list of the Talisker Masters to be held in Australia next week. Is he injured, or has he lost interest?
The young are in, the old are out...!?

The OWGR table after week #45 should look as follows:

1 Rory McIlroy
2 Tiger Woods
3 Luke Donald
4 Lee Westwood
5 Adam Scott
6 Louis Oosthuizen
7 Justin Rose
8 Jason Dufner
9 Brandt Snedeker
10 Webb Simpson
--------------------------
11 Bubba Watson
12 Steve Stricker
13 Phil Mickelson
14 Keegan Bradley
15 Nick Watney
16 Ian Poulter
17 Matt Kuchar
18 Dustin Johnson
19 Peter Hanson
20 Ernie Els
21 Zach Johnson
22 Sergio Garcia
23 Bo Van Pelt
24 Graeme McDowell
25 Hunter Mahan
26 Jim Furyk
27 Paul Lawrie
28 Francesco Molinari
29 Rickie Fowler
30 Carl Pettersson
31 Jason Day
32 Martin Kaymer
33 Charl Schwartzel
34 Nicolas Colsaerts
35 Gonzalo Fdez-Castano
36 Bill Haas
37 John Senden
38 David Toms
39 Branden Grace
40 Robert Garrigus
41 Ryan Moore
42 Scott Piercy
43 David Lynn
44 Thomas Bjorn
45 K.J. Choi
46 Matteo Manassero
47 Fredrik Jacobson
48 Jamie Donaldson
49 Alexander Noren
50 Geoff Ogilvy
------------------------
51 Martin Laird
52 Hiroyuki Fujita
53 Rafael Cabrera Bello
54 Thorbjorn Olesen
55 Richie Ramsay
56 Marcel Siem
57 Greg Chalmers
58 Bae Sang-moon
59 Kevin Na
60 Shane Lowry
61 Bud Cauley
62 Padraig Harrington
63 Anders Hansen
64 Bernd Wiesberger
65 Simon Dyson
66 Aaron Baddeley
67 Kyle Stanley
68 John Huh
69 K.T. Kim
70 George Coetzee
71 Ryo Ishikawa
72 Marcus Fraser
73 Vijay Singh
74 Ben Crane
75 Jonas Blixt
76 Jonathan Byrd
77 Alvaro Quiros
78 Mark Wilson
79 Thaworn Wiratchant
80 Michael Thompson
81 Brendon de Jonge
82 Ben Curtis
83 Toru Taniguchi
84 Pablo Larrazabal
85 Marc Leishman
86 Y.E. Yang
87 Noh Seung-yul
88 Jeff Overton
89 Gaganjeet Bhullar
90 Tim Clark
91 Ross Fisher
92 Yuta Ikeda
93 Retief Goosen
94 Charlie Wi
95 Robert Rock
96 Jeev Milkha Singh
97 Danny Willett
98 Miguel A Jimenez
99 Robert Karlsson
100 Johnson Wagner
---------------------------
101 Charles Howell-III
102 Ted Potter-jr
103 Chris Kirk
...

What a ropey old field for the Talisker Masters, typical Australian Tour. Nice to see McDo, Poults and Scott there but the rest of the field is full of forty-something past-its and Aussie journeymen.

Easy to suggest an Australasian field with better credentials.

Looking forward to the next few weeks, but this effort Down Under is a downer under.

Cheers pd,

Early count for this week:

- Hong Kong @ ~32/34pts (down from 38 last year)
- Dunlop JP @ ~34pts (up from 28 last year)
- SA Open @ 32pts (highly subsidised)
- Talisker Oz @ ~22pts (down from 32pts last year)

Cheers kwini, both the Talisker and SA Open are a big disappointment compared to last year, and Hong Kong is not exactly booming either if you look beyond Rors and Kooch...

But the Dunlop in Japan is the real surprize this week, with Donald, Colsaerts, Olesen, Quiros, Eddie M, Gonzo, Blixt, Stadler, Bae among the guests...

And if Luke wins it he could (just about) jump past Woods to #2...

That is indeed very strange about the Japanese event.

Are appearance fees involved? Wouldn't have thought so for that number of "away" players.

Or is this some kind of boycott of the HK event (in terms of the ET, sponsor or anyone else involved in organising) but without publicity as yet?

Or maybe there's a specific altruistic reason - fundraiser for worthy cause etc. Again, would probably expect some accompanying noise made though.

Media interviews might shed some light in due course.

Sky, when I said it's a surprise I meant it relative to the level seen in the last couple of years... Otherwise, it's not a big surprise that this tournament has a strong field. It has a long tradition as being the strongest event on the JP Tour calendar. Former winners there include Woods (at least twice as far as I recall), Harrington, Westwood, Poulter, Bjorn, Gonzo, E. Molinari, etc... Field strenght has been as high as 44pts in some years...

I'm sure some appearence fees are also involved, but I think it has a lot to do with Dunlop sponsoring some of these players, plus I guess some of them would use the trip to fulfill also some other sponsorship commitments or obligations with Japanese firms (I see Luke tweeting all sorts of pics about meeting with the Mizuno guys, etc...).

Oh, OK.

Wonder if Dunlop invited their better known sponsored players (er... "sponsees?" - is that a word?) - thinking of Westwood, Clarke and Howell particularly.

princedracula wrote:Early count for this week:

- Hong Kong @ ~32/34pts (down from 38 last year)
- Dunlop JP @ ~34pts (up from 28 last year)
- SA Open @ ~20pts (down from 32 last year)
- Talisker Oz @ ~22pts (down from 32pts last year)

Wouldn't the SA Open get 32 Points as the Flagship event of the Sunshine Tour?

Yes, good point GPB, got carried away with counting EVPs and forgot about that...
Could be one of the reasons why organisers are not too troubled to persuade others to come and play in that event...

how calculated do you think players are to this?
ie would anyone see the SA as an "easy" event to pick up 32points?

Skydriver wrote:Oh, OK.

Wonder if Dunlop invited their better known sponsored players (er... "sponsees?" - is that a word?) - thinking of Westwood, Clarke and Howell particularly.

Sponges? They sure do soak up a whole lot of dough

How can anybody dis the field at the South American Open... I mean they did manage to draw OWGR #1 Richard McEvoy... no... wait.... never mind. :-)

And by the way... I do think a FEW of the players are aware of "easy pickings" OWGR points at events like the SA Open or Aus Masters. IMHO Chubby has been nothing short of brilliant in steering his clients into those opportunities... if not outright creating such opportunities by sometimes "bundling" a few of his players into certain events here and there to skyrocket the event rating points. But hey, I'm not dissing Chubby... I mean it's his job to do the best for his players he can, and part of that would be helping them get a little OWGR boost here and there if its available.

its a little self fulfiling i suppose. now that Rory is number one if he turns up at a pretty low quality event there will be a huge bump in pts available.
Hey- every event he plays the number 1 player in the world is there!

Just as Greg Norman and Tiger have done . . . . .

No-one gets owgr specifics like Poulter - except princedracula of course!

Looks like Mr.Guyatt has no owgr points so a win would elevate him about 1,140 places to something like 330th!

I love press speak for last (i.e. ain't got none) in owgr points: 1,474th!

You've had some patience to check all those pages...
It's true, he's not ranked so far, but then there are 3-4 of the same in the top 20ish over there, while about half of them are not even in the top #1000...
Even the PGA of Australia website calls Guyatt the 'unheralded 37-year old Queenslander'...

Final count:

- Hong Kong @ 32pts
- SA Open @ 32pts
- Dunlop @ 32pts
- Aussie Masters @ 20pts

That means Scott can't overtake Lee with a win tomorrow...

Guyatt has a website and blog;

http://www.mattguyattgolf.com/

I wouldn't take much notice of his appraisal of golf courses as in his blog he comes out with this gem when talking about Kingston Heat.

"It isn't in my top 5 ranked courses I have played however as it is not visually pleasing to me and that is how I like to rank my courses. I love to have visually spectacular holes and although there is a couple, there is a lot that aren't. Still it is a great course."

PD, did Poulter pass Mickelson in the OWGR with his 12 points at the Aussie Masters?