OWGR - Week #48

The silly week is over...
But a win is a win, and both McDowell and Kaymer would've been prepared to accept any sort of win at this stage.
Congrats to them anyway for getting it done and hopefully it will spur them on to some greater things next season. McDowell climbs to #14, while Kaymer moves up to #28. Good move also for Keegan Bradley stopping just short of the top 10 at #11. Otherwise, Woods wasn't able to do enough to overtake Donald at #2, and this should remain now the final top 3 until the end of the season.

Well done also to the 43-year old Fujita-san who won his 4th event of the season in Japan, the JT Cup (a slightly expanded Japanese equivalent of the other two exhibition events). With this he also sealed the OoM on that tour and consolidated his top 50 position in the rankings, moving now up to #43. Otherwise, no real changes around the top 50 cutline this week...

Finally, congrats to Arnond Vongvanij from Thailand, winner on the Asian Tour of the Kings Cup in his own country, and moving up somewhere around #280 as a result...

The OWGR table after week #48 should look as follows:

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

Early count for this week:

- Thailand Champ. @ ~38pts
- Australian Open @ 32 pts
- Nelson Mandela Champ @ ~20pts

Top 3 are safe as mentioned.
Rose needs a win to be sure he stays at #4.

Curiously enough, there's a bunch of players in the 50-60 range, specially Europeans, who are just a top 10 (ish) away from making it into the top 50, yet none of them seem to be playing in South Africa this week or next. Christmas is comming, I know, but could've been worth a last push...
That means guys like Fraser, Ogilvy, Dyson, Chalmers, Na and even Stanlay could take advantage...

Cheers pd,
Off below the equator this week - assume the Mandela event earns owgr points? Interesting that guys who flunked Q-School like Davies, Uihlein and Wilson get a reprieve into this tournament!
And the Aussie Open gives some guys the chance to make up somewhat from a miserable year - is Leishman the only Aussie winner of 2013 on the E.T. and the PGA Tour?

The TV Networks made a big deal about McDowell taking a 10-week break now - assume that brings him back for the WGC Match Play, then the Florida Swing. Imagine plenty of others will also be taking at least six weeks off.

pd,
Stanley, Chalmers and Ogilvy (and maybe one or two others) are scheduled to play in Sydney . . . . . perhaps that was your point!

Is there no longer a 24pt minimum on the ET then? Or does it not apply to co-sanctioned events?

Cheers, kwini, yes that was what I was referring to...

SJ, the minimum for cosanctioned events is determined by an average between the minimums prescribed for the respective tours....

Cool, thanks pd.

Oosthuizen's late withdrawal from Thailand will have a big impact on the OWGR quota... Now likely to be worth only 32/34 pts to the winner. And they may well go into his good friend's OWGR account by the looks of things...

Will Leishman and Nitties lose owgr points due to this apparent lack of decorum from their caddies?:

http://www.golfchannel.com/news/golftalkcentral/caddies-come-to-blows-at-australian-open/

Surprised this sort of thing doesn't happen, with players/caddies more often.

Talking of which, how much farther can Allenby's form go down the river? Almost certain to miss the Aussie Open cut by a wide margin, continuation of a terrible spell since losing to Huh - or since hearing of Lyle's recurrence of leukaemia.