OWGR - Week #42

It has been a particularly busy week in terms of tournaments played, with no less than 9 events taking place on as many different tours around the world. Congratulations to all those 9 winners, who are receiving a total of 174 owgr points for their efforts!
And there have been some very interesting winners in the main 3 events this week...
First of all, sooner than many were expecting, a magnificent first profesional win for Tom Lewis in Portugal, which will translate in a huge leap of approx. 450 places in the rankings, from #621 to somewhere close to #165.
Ben Crane's win at McGladrey in a play-off against Webb Simpson means an unexpected return to the top 50 for Ben Crane (just), while Simpson doesn't get to move up at all (!!) after almost wining the tournament (it's tough at the top).
It's becoming already a frequent feature mentioning the name Bae Sang-Moon in this weekly thread as a winner. Yep, he did it again (after another play-off)! It is his 3rd win in only 6 weeks, but this time we're talking about the richest tournament on the Japanese Tour calendar in terms of owgr points awarded, the Japan Open (btw, he's also getting more than half a million USD for this win). And this means that he is now jumping all the way to #35 in the world, which also means that we now have 4 Korean players in the top 40 in the world!! (most likely for the first time ever). I was suggesting a few weeks back that Greg Norman should consider Bae for his picks for Pres Cup, and I think he can consider himself unlucky now for not having him in the team... Probably the most in-form golfer in Asia at the moment (leading now the order of merit on the JP Tour by a big margin)!

Other than that, there were no changes in the top 13 this week, and some really good opportunities were missed by some of those already outside or on the brink of droping out of the top 50: e.g. Hanson, Eddi Molinari, Jimenez... And finally, after all that, Tiger is overtaken by Bae, Ben & Byrd, which means that he falls now to #55 in the world.

The owgr ranking table after week #42 should look like this:

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

pd,
Amid all the brouhaha surrounding Lewis's win there were some trainwrecks out there with prominent players (think Bjorn, Hanson, Quiros, Harrington, Kaymer etc) who will all look back at their Portuguese experience and reflect on opportunities lost.

Very happy to see Trev and King Louis get back approaching their best, Cabrera and O'Hern too.

And this week's surprise packet among those dropping out of the all-important top 50 is Ryan Moore. He needs to get the owgr's figured out.

Lewis about 175th???

Great work, pd, about 12 hours ahead of anyone else!

Cheers, kwini.

kwinigolfer wrote:Lewis about 175th???

More like #165 maybe? Somewhere around that area...

Talking about Hanson, apart from missing a good chance last week in Portugal to ge back into the groove, now I see he's gone from the Castello Masters field as well... But Tom Lewis is still in it, so could be interesting to see Matteo and himself battling for another title... the media would certainly love to see that...

Very thin (at the top level anyway) field for the Castello Masters, especially considering the purse.
Once again, the upper tier of European Tour members should be supporting these events or they'll be gone.
Big oipportunity though, I suppose, for those scrambling for their cards, or looking to secure a place in the R2D finale.
Didn't you think Hanson looked out of gas yesterday? Some poor decision making and a couple of very short putts which didn't touch the hole.

I'm not sure if he was out of gas kwini, maybe, but to me certainly he looked out of ideas, really was a strange last round. He played pretty well the first 3 days and my bet was on him on Sunday morning to close the deal...

Very thin indeed that field, but good to see Sergio playing again. BTW, Sergio has been sort of the headline supporter of this tournament, I wonder would the limited field have something to do with Sergio's rather limited pouplarity among other fellow players? Or maybe he just doesn't work hard enough (like Gonzo) to try to convince some of the top guys to come over... Even Jimenez is missing...

Preliminary counts for this week:

- Castello @24 points
- Disney around 30 points
- Bridgestone Open in JP around 20 points
- ...and once again, there will be another interesting event in Korea - KJ is launching his own "CJ Invitational Hosted by KJ Choi" co-sanctioned by the Asian and Korean Tours. Apart from him, star atraction is Anthony Kim, with Noh, Siddikur and other top Asian Tour golfers in the field (should add up to a respectable 12 points or so)
I was wondering, is there anyone else apart from Palmer, Nicklaus and Woods who have their own tournaments running at the moment?

Interesting to see Hanson penalise himself on 17 yesterday - which may or may not have impacted his score? Either way he knew he was scrabbling for points and all that provides but still was not prepared to take the easy option even with refereed approval. "It would feel like cheating and I wouldn't be comfortable with that"
Top man

Early predictions for this week:
- top 6 owgr will remain unchanged
- Simpson needs to score (anything) to knock Phil out of the top 10
- Simpson can move as high as 7th if he wins Disney
- Tiger unlikely to drop any further this week (looks like only Senden can overtake him with a top 3 finish)

Phil out of the top 10 is almost as news-worthy as Tiger down to #55

Phil out of the top 10 signifys a huge change of the guard yet still Stricker hangs in with uber consistency

I'd say it's a change of guard, but also a sign of a new era, when the average age of the top golf players is going down quite fast and quite significantly...

Here is how the average age of the top 10 owgr has changed (or not) over the years:

Oct-2011: 30.6 (post Tiger era)
Oct-2010: 34.0
Oct-2009: 37.1
Oct-2008: 34.6
Oct-2007: 34.2
...
Oct-1996: 35.8 (pre Tiger era)

Out with the old (Singh, Els, Goosen, Furyk), in with the nouveau (Kaymer, McIlroy, Dustin, Day).

Intriguing thing with the Young Americans is that yet another generation is being skipped, the 30-somethings piling up points and fortunes, but not multiple wins or Majors. Kuchar, Watson, Watney and one or two others approaching golfing middle age, even Haas and Mahan turn 30 next spring.
Dustin Johnson leading the next lot, Webb Simpson, Bradley (not as convinced about him as the American Press might be), Kim, Fowler etc ready to step up? Or not??
Thing is, none of them is winning consistently and that is a young man's habit. But they're taking the money but leaving the winning to Stricker.

I think Kim has had his day. Good start to his career, but done very little in recent years. Like many he seems content to live a comfortable life on tour and cultivate a preposterous mullet.

Have to admit I thought Kim was a huge prospect pre thumb injury, but feel like since he comeback instead of looking for the game that got him near top and made him outstanding in the RC, he has come back as someone who just lashes wildly at the ball. Can't see Fowler closing out enough events to stay right near top and don't see him as a top 10 OGWR player. Bradley again nice guy couple good wins but is he that good to challenge the top of the world I don't think so IMO. However DJ can if he finds consistency and Simpson looks to be on his way right up there my only worries with Webb are how will his quick tempo hold up when he has the inevitable bad patch as all players bar none do, the only thing is the ridiculous amount of bible bashing but each to their own.

I don't think that a six month suspension for anyone who mentions god would be too harsh.

I know its each to their own but I really don't get the whole point around thanking god for everything they do and as for the ridiculous comment you clearly heard broadcast at start of the Simpson-Crane playoff was just plain hill billy, can't remember which one of the 2 players said it but I believe the exact words were something like "looks like its bible class playoff, good luck and be blessed" I turned off at that point not caring who won!

You can believe in god if you like (personally I think it represents a weak character and feeble mind) but you should keep it to yourself. These players just embarrass themselves when they evangelise and shove it down peoples throat.

kwinigolfer wrote:Out with the old (Singh, Els, Goosen, Furyk), in with the nouveau (Kaymer, McIlroy, Dustin, Day).

Intriguing thing with the Young Americans is that yet another generation is being skipped, the 30-somethings piling up points and fortunes, but not multiple wins or Majors. Kuchar, Watson, Watney and one or two others approaching golfing middle age, even Haas and Mahan turn 30 next spring.
Dustin Johnson leading the next lot, Webb Simpson, Bradley (not as convinced about him as the American Press might be), Kim, Fowler etc ready to step up? Or not??
Thing is, none of them is winning consistently and that is a young man's habit. But they're taking the money but leaving the winning to Stricker.

We have this debate a lot Kwini but realistically who is winning consistently these days, nobody really. Its not just an American failing, far from it. Bjorn and Donald have won three times each I think but five of those were in Europe and for me anyway the PGA is a tougher place to win. Lets face it the world number one hasnt had a PGA strokeplay win in 5 years and its not like he hasnt played a few events. Casey has had just the one, there is only really Rose with three wins who has really learnt how to win over there and yet he probably gets more stick on here than any other player.
I think its just more evidence that there arent any real stand out players around right now when it comes to picking winners.

I don't buy this assumption that the PGA is tougher to win on. There's a great deal of journeyman pro's on both tours and I think it's just a perception that the PGA is seen as a touger tour because it has been in the past.

I think on both tours there are now a higher percentage of players capable of competing at the top end (in addition to journeymen), hence fewer people will win multiple events.
It doesn't mean either tour is weaker, but it might mean that both are more competitive than they have been.
Personally I find it more interesting where the winner is difficult to pick. There is nothing more boring that having the same few players pick up virtually everything.

I do think its tougher week in and week out. Way tougher to be honest, but anyway we've done that one.
It can be interesting having a lot of equal players but it can also be very dull, when someone different wins every week Im fairly disinterested. Personally I prefer a scenario when you have several guys at the top fighting it out, a bit like the situation in tennis at the moment. I need to be interested in the players and I cant really be bothered to be interested in the whole field.

I know what you mean Diggers, I think it's just that golfers by their nature are pretty boring people, especially on the PGA tour, add to the fact that the coverage is wretched and it's a pretty hard product to like. Probably makes it look worse than it actually is.

super_realist wrote:You can believe in god if you like (personally I think it represents a weak character and feeble mind) but you should keep it to yourself. These players just embarrass themselves when they evangelise and shove it down peoples throat.

I love irony me

Surprisingly, I've become more tolerant of late - God botherers no longer wind me up the same way. Of course it might be the advent of Sky Plus and the ability for me to only watch actual golf, and not all the other nonsense.

I've been mentioning some details in the past about Kim Kyung Tae's amazing record on the Korean and JP tours where he plays most of his golf.
Last week KtK missed his cut at the Japan Open, nothing out of the ordinary, you would say, but in his case I thought it's something worth looking once again in more detail....
We've been talking about the struggles of Nick Dougherty and his endless streak of missed cuts. KtK is somehow at the opposit pole from that, as this has been his first MC in 2 years and 2 months in Asia, after playing no less than 46 events there in this period!! And it's getting even more remarkable than that... In 45 out of those 46 tournaments he finished top 30, which included ~32 top 10s!!! (while in the 46th event he finished a 'dismal' T36)... I know there are some differences in strength between PGA/ET on one side and the JP and Asian tours on the other side, but these are still quite incredible stats anyway you look at them... And he only turned 25 last month... And BTW, to make a small parallel with Tom Lewis, KtK turned professional 5 years ago at the age of 20, and got his first pro win in his 2nd tournament played after that!!!

Asian golf updates:

Japan tour - Bridgestone Open
Surprising appearence by Brandt Snedeker in the field there and he is playing pretty well, T2 after a 1st round 67, but he's 4 shots behind Miyamoto (63). Interesting to see the 'sacred monster' of Japanese golf, Jumbo Ozaki still playing at 64 years of age, with the young 42-year old 'Smiling Assassin' also in the field...

Asian/Korean Tour - CJ Inv. Hosted by KJ Choi
KJ is also T2 in his new tournament in Korea after the 1st day at 5-under, with Anthony Kim one shot further back (T4).

I wonder if next week's Shanghai Masters organisers are just being honest or they know something we don't when they say on the introductory/background webpage of the tournament: "...This four day event is a 72-hole non-elimination tournament and will compromise a total of 30 golfers competing..."

Sneds has been sponsored by Bridgestone for a few years now. Probably anxious to show Capt Fred the error of his ways.

(Wonder if Jumbo Ozaki has been out of Japan the past fifteen years - almost like he's a mirage (big mirage) with scarcely any success outside Japan. Didn't they used to call DC "Guinness" because his game didn't travel well? Perhaps they should call Jumbo-san Kirin as his game scarcely travels at all?)

Golfers compromised? Not surprising with Daly and Montgomerie in the field.

Casey and Poulter are sliding down the OWGR very fast now, not sure them moving house, was a good thing from a golf perspective, seems they have lost that competitive edge.

We all know Poulter will come good in matchplay, but will that be enough for him to keep his PGA card, Casey on the other hand has had a huge dip in form, I think he has the class to remain on the PGA tour, but he must start to regain some of his shot making ability very soon.

oldpar,
Either by accident or design, Casey will NOT have Full PGA Tour Membership for 2012.
Agree, he'll be back in the World's Top 20 as soon as he wants!

kwinigolfer wrote:oldpar,
Either by accident or design, Casey will NOT have Full PGA Tour Membership for 2012.
Agree, he'll be back in the World's Top 20 as soon as he wants!

Think it will be good for him this year with 2012 being a ryder cup year. Should definately be in the team now id have imagined.

Higly likely Caseywill take his playing rights he has in europe and take some form of special exemption on PGA if that's allowed? Kwini?

He could play full time europe, the majors,wgc's and couple invites on PGA tour to make enough money to earn full exemption for 201r if he sorts himself out we all know he's goond enough.

Another that's had significant drop this year though somewhat unnoticed Ed Molinari, maybe its just after a stellar 2 years (1 on CT the oth on ET) he has simply found his level

Mav,
Absolutely! Casey may have Finchem exactly where he wants him; having fulfilled his 15-event minimum, he is probably entitled to 12 tournaments including Majors and WGC's!!

kwinigolfer wrote:Casey may have Finchem exactly where he wants him; having fulfilled his 15-event minimum, he is probably entitled to 12 tournaments including Majors and WGC's!!

Good point, maybe that's what he was after all the way...

Talking about guys who don't travel well, at the opposite side looks to be also Anthony Kim these days... His best result by far in the last 9 months has been at the Open and now he seems to play well again in Korea...

Hi pd,
This was a new one on me, but very very welcome:

http://www.pgatour.com/2011/r/10/20/pgatour-latinamerica/index.html

I can't find anything in here about application of official world ranking points but they are way overdue for the South American countries and tours and their introduction will help level their playing field.

A few years ago I suggested at least one PGA Tour events for S.America and one of the journos on golfchannel.com lifted virtually the exact wording of my post a couple of weeks later!!

Anyway: Good news. We get carried away by "Asia" but DeVicenzo, Romero, Franco, Cabrera, Camilo etc have inspired terrific growth "south of the border". Fertile ground for sure.

Thanks, kwini, it's a very welcome development, I agree.
I think they basically had a trial run this year of that structure (called Tour de Las Americas) and they have played already at least 10 official tournaments from what I could see (all OWGR sanctioned @ 6 points), in countries like Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile, Argentina, etc... (last week was the latest one in Chile). They've been runing also an 'order of merit' there (current leader is Benjamin Alvarado from Chile, who is already close to #300 in world rankings as a result).

It's obviously a very much US/PGA driven project (perhaps a bit too much, I may add). I just hope it will prove strong and attractive enough for the best players that will emerge in these countries to make them stay and play there longer and make that tour grow, rather than looking for a faster route into the PGA and European Tours... Also the hope will be that some of these tournaments will get strong enough to attract some of the elite world players to go and play there, as it's been happening more and more in Asia in recent years...

Update from Asia:

Japan Tour - Bridgestone Open
Not so good from Brandt Snedeker in round 2, he drops now to a T12 position after a 1-over par 2nd round. Miyamoto still in the lead at 8-under, with Ryo Ishikawa T7. But probably the big news of the day over there is an excellent round of 68 by the veteran Jumbo Ozaki, one of the top 10 rounds of the day(!), which brings him comfortably above the cut line and showing that there's still life in the old dog...

CJ INVITATIONAL HOSTED BY KJ CHOI
Must be something in those ginseng roots... Korean Tour is begining to feel like a place of pilgrimage for out-of-form top golfers in desperate search for a win that may kick them back into form, or just in search for a win, full stop... After Casey and Fowler, looks like Anthony Kim may have found the magic solution to his problems. He's leading by 3 shots after a great 2nd round result (66), although those who saw him play say it wasn't at his best and it was all due to some brilliant scrambling... He revealed after that he decided to let his hair grow long until he gets back in form, so he may well leave hairless from Korea if he goes on to win this... The tournament host, KJ, remains T2 after a 1-under 70 today.

Was just having a gaze at the qualifying players for the HSBC Champions event. Surprised to see that Westwood qualifies for winning Nedbank, but McDowell doesn't qualify via Chevron (tho' he sneaks in under an owgr barrel scrape).

http://www.hsbcgolf.com/who-is-qualifying

Many Americans stayed at home for last year's play, wonder who will avoid this edition? As Luke Donald will of course, due to paternity "leave".

Had a look through that myself the other day and was wondering who will actually turn up this year... I'd say the Shanghai Masters mini-field would suggest that at least those playing there will stick around for the another week if they're eligible... Didn't notice that thing about GMac&Chevron, strange one...

Big weekend for Sergio; a win would pretty much secure his ticket into The Masters, even a runner up would help a lot.

Yep, a runner up would lift him as high as #35, a win to ~#31...
But then a win for Noren would bring him in the mid 50's (just under Tiger)and give him hopes as well...

Quick update from Asia:
- Snedds is tied for 10th place in Japan going into Sunday, after a round of 69 today, and he is 4 shots behind the leaders, Miyamoto and Taniguchi.
- In Korea, despite shooting a 68 today, Anthony Kim is now on 2nd place, one shot behind the leader Lee Ki-Sang who finished the day with a brilliant 64 (which included a hole in one) and two shots ahead of KJ who's 3rd...
Lee Ki-Sang is currently #1332 in the world and playing only his 5th official owgr tournament in the last 2 years!

Final count shows that Disney just squeezes into the 32 point bracket, while Castello is at 24 (and subsidised by 4 points).
Japan's Bridgestone Open at 22 and KJ's tourney at 14 are pretty good returns for the Asian events...

Still feeling tense after watching that final... maybe not one of the very best, but a terriffic contest nevertheless. Congrats to the Kiwis, but if it went the other way, no one could've complained I would think, the French played extremely well in the second half...

Anyway, back to golf and a quick final update from Asia...

- Toru Taniguchi won the Bridgestone Open in the end by 5 shots, with Snedeker finishing with a decent T6 place.

- in Korea, KJ said yesterday that 'the player with the strongest mental attitude will win' and to that extent they probably could've handed him the trophy straight away . He went in the lead early on in the final round and never really gave the others another chance to catch him up. Noh had a great day and managed to finish runner up, with Anthony Kim having to settle for a T3 finish after only managing an 1-over par round today. Now will just have to wait and see if he considers that sufficient to justify a haircut...

Fair to say the ref gave France nothing in that game Prince? Every single 50 50 went the way of the kiwis , very lucky boys today.

KJ probably knew "the player with the strongest mental attitude" eliminated AK right away!

An in-form KJ would a big plus for Greg Norman in 3 weeks' time.

Agreed Diggs, maybe nothing really major in that sense by the referee, but yeah, overall there was a trend there... Another thing I was a bit dissapointed with were the last 3-4 minutes, when the Kiwis were under intense pressure and got the ball and 'cleverly' kept it in play, but virtually didn't move it at all, which I think is one of the features/rules that I'd like to see changed in future. Fair play to them, they were perfectly entitled to do that within the current rules, but it just made it feel more like they wanted to kill the contest rather than win it...

kwini, that's true, when I read KJ's comment yesterday I though straight away that it almost looked like it was specifically targeting AKim, although I'm sure he didn't mean that....

kwinigolfer wrote:Big weekend for Sergio; a win would pretty much secure his ticket into The Masters, even a runner up would help a lot.

Isn't Sergio already qualified for the Masters because of his US Open performance?

If I remember correctly it's the top 8 who qualify for Masters (and the top 10 to next US Open), so yes, he should be in...I think....

Hi delToro,
Yes, I'm sure he is. Somehow my laziness in not wanting to go to the bother of checking his final US Open finish overrode the sense that he has next year's Majors taken care of. Sorry about that,

Lovely stuff from Sergio, great to see. So, up to the low thirties you project? Love it!!

Don't overlook this week's Nationwider; the young gun du jour on the PGA Tour wasn't eligible for Disney so is playing in his hometown Winn-Dixie Jacksonville event. Bud Cauley T5 overnight, four shots behind.

Magical week for Sergio! He's #31 as we speak, with only Gary Woodland threatening to get ahead of him, but only if he finishes solo 2nd or 1st...

As I said in the other thread, glad to see him in the Andalucia field, I haven't seen him in there when they initially posted the entry list. DC has vanished though...