OWGR - Week#35

That rather lengthy play-off in Scotland almost made up for the shortened Barclays in the US.
Well done to Dustin Johnson, Thomas Bjorn and Bae Sang-Moon for their wins in US, EU and JP this week!
A significant step forward for DJ, moving now to #4 in the world rankings.
It's so good to see Thomas Bjorn back to his best with his second win of the season and a jump up to #59.
But the T2 for Coetzee was just enough to secure his accession to the elite 100.
And Mr. Bae San must be over the Moon with his win at Augusta (!) in JP, as he jumps to #79.
Tiger drops further down to #38, but Padraig finally manages a small climb up to #71 for a change...

Anyway, here is how the OWGR table should look like after week#35:

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

Shame for Bjorn still not to be top fifty; just goes to show how critical entry into big events is.
Missed chances for some advancement by Dyson and Eddie Mol, but Davis and Larrazabal continue their climb. Coetzee is going to be a good player, very impressive the past few times he's been on the box.

Cheers kwini.
Thomas has been a bit unlucky with a bunch of the guys that have been in front of him (Byrd, Vijay, Badds, Sabb, Palmer, etc.) doing well enough at Barclays to stay ahead of him... It's a bit of a shame though when you think he had to win after 77 holes while for some of the others was good enough a top 20 or so after only 54 holes. C'est la vie, as they say in Danemark...

Imagine Deutsche Bank will be pretty similar to Barclays' but the Swiss will be banking on a much better yield - what do you think? 36 - 40 for the winner?

Yep, without even checking I'd say 70 and 40 will be just about right (give or take 2 pts), but I'll check later on...

Not good enough last round for Knox in Knoxville to get any new points...
But a fantastic 3rd win by the Frenchman Benjamin Hebert at the Rolex Trophy on the Challenge Tour in Europe which should bring him right into the top 180. Not tooo shabby for a guy coming from the CT...

The new generation of French golfers are coming on, Duboisson and Wattel had good tournaments again in Scotland.

I'm hoping John Mallinger wins the Knox-ville tournament - a bit unlucky to lose his card, seems a very nice guy and he rather threw away a top finish last week. Would like to see him back on Tour.

Not final call, but at a closer inspection, looks to be swinging towards ET a bit further next week: 68 and 42! (compared to 70 and 30 last year)
But I'll have a final confirmation of this later in the week...
BTW, I assumed Charl and JB will miss DB as well, but that may not be true...

Charl will definitely be playing - I'd think JB will be in the hospital, or at least recuperating and definitely incapacitated.

Yo kwini. Just sitting here watching the US Amateur final. What an extraordinary course Erin Hills is. Great final too. US Open in 2017?

Yo gael,
Haven't seen any of it; there's been a ton of controversy surrounding the development of Erin Hills but everyone seems unanimous that it's a fabulous piece of land. I'll be interested to read the reviews as this will have been its first test.
Not my favourite decision of the USGA to take their Open to Erin Hills, (yup, 2017), completely uncharted territory after all, but all will be well if it ends well.

Tell you what kwini ... anyone who doesn't bring with them their chipping armoury, better no' bother entering. The greens are 'well' defended ... mostly by topography!

It's so unlike yer typical US course, as in , nae trees! Brilliant! Great spectators course too. Lots of mounding.

From what I could make out, an inland glacial links course seemed to be the description deployed as course type.

We're at the 36th hoe btw and Cantlay's 1 down.

Krafty win.
Hope he has more luck in his pro career than Greg Kraft who had to sue the PGA Tour!

Provided he stays out of Arizona, he should be ok kwini!

Seems to be a bit of a brouhaha brewing over US team selection with the controversial omission of John Peterson.

We have a similar controversy over here with the omission of David Law who recently won 'the Scottish' and is an aberdonian to boot so must know Royal Aberdeen inside out.

Who'd be a selector, eh?

Forgot to mention kwini that I found this not so Kraft(y) quote ...

“I’m just really excited to be going to Scotland and to beat those guys up. It’s going to be great and what a way to end the summer."

Dem's fightin' words!

One would hope the GB&I team will be queuing up to play him.

There might be more to John Petersen's omission than meets the eye.
He raised a few eyebrows a few weeks ago when he finished second to Harris English in a Nationwide event in Columbus. Can't find his actual quote now but it was something to the effect that guys like him can beat PGA Tour pros any day of the week.

No-one made a really big deal of it, but he left the distinct impression that he wasn't playing with a full deck.

There'll be a bunch of guys in this US Walker Cup team who have a good record in pro events - hope Aberdeen kicks the stuffing out of them.

kwini, he may have been playing with more cards than you think. These days, surely US college golfers are professionals except in name only?

David Law went through a bad spell in some stroke play stuff earlier in the season and he felt he had to win the Scottish in order to have any hope of getting into the team.

I don't care how good a golfer is at stroke play. When it comes right down to it, I want a team of match players and David Law certainly proved he is a good match player by winning the Scottish. Notwithstanding local bias, even Paul Lawrie was moved to question the selectors motives for excluding him.

Thanks pd.

The only 2 names that seem out of order near the top are: Poults and Casey. How many weeks until they start losing high points from a year or so ago and start plunging downward?

How secure are Donald and Westwood at 1 and 2?

Will the ET adapt or change its policies to retain the likes of Rory, Lee and some others that are reconsidering about leaping the pond? Seems like the purses need to be increased though how is that possible during this current economic climate?

Would think Tiger might take a tumble of perhaps six or more places this week . . . . .

venice, you've a lot of questions in there, I wish I did this for a living, then I'll have enough time to answer...
I'll just take the easier one for now...
Luke is absolutely safe again, no one can touch him for a while. Lee, even if he wins twice in Switherland and Netherlands and still cannot catch him.
But LW himself is not that safe anymore at #2. DJ and SS can both pass him with wins at DBank. Lee needs a solo 2nd if SS wins and a top 12 or so if DJ wins to stay at #2...

kwini - that's about right what you said about Tiger... he actually drops to #40 in any case this week, but can easily be passed by 3,4,5 other guys that are behind him within only a few fractions...

One other quick point about Tiger and his return to play... as I've guesstimated a while ago, I was expecting that he would drop out of the top 50 the 2nd week in October or the week before that. So he may have picked his return just in time to stop that (if he performs and scores enough points, of course). But as I said, it is also possible that he will be already out of top 50 when he tees off in California, depends a lot on how other players will score between now and then...

kwinigolfer wrote:Would think Tiger might take a tumble of perhaps six or more places this week . . . . .

Here's a question then Tiger drops out of Top 50, where does that put his tournament invites from a stand point of WGC's. Presumably with his major victories he gets his usual invites back to those due to the length of time those invites stand, but what about the WGC's and events such as Players surely he should be subject to the same rules are the rest of the guys outside top 50 or will it be the Tiger rule again

Sure Finchem will find a "loophole" or "special dispensation" why he should be there, either that or Mac will threaten to throw himself off the Scott Monument if he doesn't get to play.

Mav,
He'll only be in WGC MatchPlay if he's in the top 64 and don't imagine he'll have exemptions to Cadillac or Firestone if he's not in the top 50. Already missing out on HSBC Champions. Not sure about The Players, think he's in under 5-year exemption for 2008 US Open.

Thats what I thought Kwini, wouldn't it be lovely to see a WGC minus the Tiger because he is not ranked high enough in the OGWR.

Maverick wrote:Thats what I thought Kwini, wouldn't it be lovely to see a WGC minus the Tiger because he is not ranked high enough in the OGWR.

It would be lovely Mav, but being that our coverage is governed by American host broadcasters I assume they'll somehow manage to shoehorn him in somehow.

Had Rocco won that US Open, Tiger would have been in danger of missing the US Open pretty soon I'd imagine.

As it is, Rocco's playing on the Nationwide Tour this week.

pd,
I love seeing Kaymer, McIlroy, Westwood right up amongst 'em. Beaucoup points for all three would be a fine statement to make in front of Rounds 3 and 4 in the Boston area.

Yep, very satisfying indeed to see these top guys doing what we expect them to do... Guys like DJ, Stricker and Kouchar more than likely will grab more points over the next couple of weeks, so it's important for the top Europeans to maintain their positions. DBank looks like it may well be a 70-pointer in the end if I count Schwartzel in as well. Omega likely to be 42 pts, as I said...

Charl definitely in the field, teeing off at 7.58 a.m. with Dufner and Davis. He's slipped to #28 in FedEx points so needs to play reasonably well this week and in Chicago in two weeks' time to qualify for the Tour Championship.

So;
Win European Masters: Collect 42 points.
Finish 2nd at the Deutsche Bank: Collect 42 points.

After the final count, due to a higher number of players between #100-200 in the rankings than I anticipated initially, it means that the Omega Masters will be actually worth 44 points to the winner, which is great to see. That doesn't change the earlier predictions at the top, although as it looks now, obviously Lee is in no real danger of conceiding #2 spot, on the contrary he looks like he will strenghten his position.
But it should be a very interesting battle for the higher positions in the top 15 with Bubba, Charl and Adam leading in Boston, Lee, Rory and Martin up there in Crans Montana and overall at least 9 from top 15 currently being in contention.
Any of the current top 10 could, in theory, reach #3 this week, as Stricker seems to be struggling a bit.
Thomas Bjorn will need a top 3-4 to have a chance to make it into top 50.
Jamie Donaldson could jump up into the low 60's if he completes his first ET win in Switzerland tday...

Really happy to see Bjorn confirming again this week. This guy is HOT! Another great shot there at the 15th and an eagle chance. Kaymer stalling a bit on the back nine, but Jamie still with a great chance to breack his duck....

Eagle it is!!! Wow!

Well, on the green in 2 at the last hole and 3 shots in front... Hallelujah!!!

With this win the discussion about Thomas' owgr position we'll be shifting from top 50 to the top 30 and higher!! And who could argue with that right now!

Talk about steel and style!! What a finish by Thomas!!!!!

pd, thanks for your updates! Where will Thomas be on Monday?

Cheers, pedro.
Currently sitting proudly at #26!! But probably a couple of guys from Boston may move ahead of him. Still, it's highly likely that he'll stay inside the top 30!

BTW, Tiger already down to#42 even before counting DeutscheBank in... At this rate he may well be outside top 50 before he tees off at Frys.com...

It'll be nice to see some order restored to the top of the owgr's as well with Kaymer and McIlroy having the chance to move on up, subject to Stricker (currently 55th) and Johnson (19th).
Shame about Dyson's finish but it's his week this week!

Morning kwini,
at least for one day the top 4 owgr order is (including the current situation after 3-days in Boston):
1. Luke
2. Lee
3. Martin
4. Rory
....

So it's order restored for now...
But we'll see what today has in store in that respect. Looks as wide open as the Omega tournament was with ~40 players within 6 shots of the Bubble...

pd

Good to hear Kaymer talking positively again, sounds like he means business for his upcoming title defences. Didn't see the final two rounds but great to see the best Europeans all playing well. Should be about a 40 pointer this week wouldn't you think, perhaps +- 2 anyway.
Looking forward to it.

Around 40 sounds about right, kwini... but we'll double check it later. Compared to Omega, a couple of noticeables are in (AHansen, RossF, Colsaerts), but a good few are out (Bjorn, Franny, Mechanic, Matteo, DC). I wonder if Colsaerts will be 100% recovered...

Good win by Gary C yesterday on Nationwide, that should lift him well in the top 300.
Did you get to see the par 4 ace from Gangjee? I know there have been a few of those in the past, but for me, as far as I could remember, it's been the first one to see it on TV...

pd,
Didn't see any of the Nationwide. Great result for Christian - don't really know much about him other than his pgatour.com and had rather dismissed him as an N'wide lifer. Love it!

Pleased to see Colsaerts back - that must have been a much more serious injury than first suggested. But sorry to see no DC - didn't he win there three yrs ago? Perhaps he has to play Mr.Dad.

There's the par4 ace from yesterday, already on youtube...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HGtU6aJqVE