OWGR - Week #15

A brilliant finish to a Masters edition that otherwise would've been remembered more for its controversies than for its quality...

A superb, well deserved and well overdue win for Adam Scott and for Australian golf, and an equally superb runner up finish for segnor Cabrera! Adam moves now to #3 in the world rankings while Angel jumps all the way to #64 (he would've been at #40 with a win). Hard luck for Jason Day who's moving up to #25 with this 3rd place, but after what he did here two years ago and again this year, you'd fancy him to be back in contention again in future and probably win it sometime... Brilliant performance from Thorbjorn Olesen, moving up to #34, best of the Europeans and another one that will be back and probably win this event in the near future. Leishman completed a remarkable overall performance by the Aussies this week and he moves all the way up to #68 as a result. Among other significant movers this week are: John Huh, 'huh' climbs back inside the top 100 (#89) and Tim Clark, who is moving back inside the top 50 (at #48). And that means that now South Africa has no less than 7 players inside the top 50!!!

Otherwise, congrats to Alex Aragon (from USA), Lin Wen Tang (from Taiwan) and Grant Jackson (from England - who said that there hasn't been an English winner in the Masters week for ages...?), winners on the Web.com tour, Asian Tour and ADT, and moving up to somewhere around #280, #335 and #680, respectively.

And finally, hats off to the 14-year old Tianlang Guan from China for an amazing performance (albeit a bit on the slow side). Apart from many other accolades that he received this week, Guan is also earning his first ever OWGR points, and he should be now ranked somewhere inside the top 1100 in the world!

The OWGR table after week #15 should look as follows:

1 Tiger Woods
2 Rory McIlroy
3 Adam Scott
4 Justin Rose
5 Brandt Snedeker
6 Luke Donald
7 Louis Oosthuizen
8 Steve Stricker
9 Matt Kuchar
10 Phil Mickelson
-----------------------------
11 Lee Westwood
12 Keegan Bradley
13 Sergio Garcia
14 Bubba Watson
15 Ian Poulter
16 Charl Schwartzel
17 Dustin Johnson
18 Graeme McDowell
19 Jason Dufner
20 Webb Simpson
21 Peter Hanson
22 Hunter Mahan
23 Nick Watney
24 Ernie Els
25 Jason Day
26 Jim Furyk
27 Bo Van Pelt
28 Bill Haas
29 Zach Johnson
30 Rickie Fowler
31 Gonzalo Fdez-C.
32 Branden Grace
33 Martin Kaymer
34 Thorbjorn Olesen
35 Jamie Donaldson
36 Carl Pettersson
37 Paul Lawrie
38 Robert Garrigus
39 Scott Piercy
40 Francesco Molinari
41 Henrik Stenson
42 Nicolas Colsaerts
43 Michael Thompson
44 George Coetzee
45 Ryan Moore
46 Fredrik Jacobson
47 Richard Sterne
48 Tim Clark
49 Matteo Manassero
50 Marcel Siem
-----------------------------
51 John Senden
52 Russell Henley
53 Padraig Harrington
54 David Lynn
55 Geoff Ogilvy
56 Charles Howell III
57 Hiroyuki Fujita
58 Martin Laird
59 Alexander Noren
60 Chris Wood
61 Thongchai Jaidee
62 Luke Guthrie
63 Thomas Bjorn
64 Angel Cabrera
65 Greg Chalmers
66 D.A. Points
67 Jimmy Walker
68 Mark Leishman
69 Stephen Gallacher
70 Marcus Fraser
71 David Toms
72 Charlie Beljan
73 Rafael Cabrerra-Bello
74 Anders Hansen
75 Shane Lowry
76 Jaco Van Zyl
77 Brendan de Jonge
78 K.J. Choi
79 Chris Kirk
80 Richie Ramsay
81 Kevin Streelman
82 Bernd Wiesberger
83 Scott Jamieson
84 John Merrick
85 Miguel A. Jimenez
86 Thaworn Wiratchant
87 Darren Fichardt
88 Kiradech Aphibarnrat
89 John Huh
90 Thomas Aiken
91 Gaganjeet Bhullar
92 Ben Crane
93 Aaron Baddeley
94 Mark Wilson
95 Danny Willett
96 Bae Sang-Moon
97 Kristoffer Broberg
98 Kevin Na
99 Ryan Palmer
100 Billy Horschel
---------------------------
101 Brendan Jones
102 Josh Teater
103 Jeff Overton
...

Kind of strange that 60 points moves Cabrera up 205 places, but 40 additional points would have only moved him another 24 spots.

And about 13th in the Int'l Prez Cup Standings.

Very cool, pd, .

GPB will also surely note that the Top 30-ish continues to remain fairly stable.

Luke Donald now really starting to slide; this week sees his customary Hilton Head annuity, but not so sure it favours him so much when his game is just not sharp.
Dufner, Simpson (being saved by his Olympic Club win; not much else to write home about) and Mahan also drifting now.

Unless otherwise qualified, just the owgr Top 50 are exempt in to The Players and that means David Lynn, for instance, still needs a good result or two to make it - he'll be rueing his Round 3 collapse at Augusta.

I don't know where else to put this, I didn't want it to get buried in the Masters thread but do not think it deserves it own thread.

On Golf Channel's Morning Drive this morning, Olin Browne gave a shout out to Miller Barber who apparently very sick. I got the impression that he is on his death bed. Peter Kostis has tweeted for everyone to say a prayer for Miller Barber

The incomparable Mr. X won one the first golf tournaments I ever watched on TV in the Dean Martin Tucson Open in 1972 when I was sick in bed and we did not have many channel options in Franklin County, VT (for Kwini).

I don't remember the analyst, but I remember them doing a slow motion (and criticizing) of his flying right elbow. From that point, he was always one of my favorite golfers.

Some Mr X's quips

"...Bad Sausage and five bogeys will give you a stomach ache every time."

"...I'm not saying my golf game went bad, but if I grew tomatoes, they'd come up sliced...."


Best wishes to Miller Barber, the only player to win the US Senior Open three times.

GPB,
Sad news indeed.
I followed Mr X at a Senior Open, playing with Arnold Palmer which might have had something to do with it, on a hard-walking course in 90F degree heat and high humidity about twelve years ago. Surprising neither expired then.
Two legends of the Pro game.

Sorry to hear that a great Pro may be in line for life's ultimate bogey.

PS: Still very few channel options in Franklin County!

kwinigolfer wrote:

GPB will also surely note that the Top 30-ish continues to remain fairly stable.

Yep, Jason Day moves up to #25.

There have 16 tournaments this year on the PGATour this year.

8 of them have been won by players ranked 1-25.
0 of them have been won by players 26-100
8 of them have been won by players 101-300

And quite frankly, there has not been many real contenders in the 26-100 this year either.

Off the top of my head (there are a couple others)

Howell at Humana
Haas at Los Angeles
Fowler at Bay Hill
Stenson at Houston

Just saw a tweet from PGATour that Thorbjorn has earned enough to become a special temporary member of the PGAT. That means he can accept unlimited Sponsors invites

GPB wrote:Just saw a tweet from PGATour that Thorbjorn has earned enough to become a special temporary member of the PGAT. That means he can accept unlimited Sponsors invites

I was going to ask about that earlier. Did the maths this morning and reckoned he was good by a few thousand dollars; though he still has to choose to take the offer up I guess.

Also monitoring Castano's situation, having already got his special temp membership. Think he's around 70k short of the earnings of last year's no. 125; not sure if that means anything this year, but there's a target for earning himself full membership next year.


Can't say that I share Kostis' faith in prayer, but best wishes to Miller Barber all the same. A pioneer of the current trend of American golfers with two surnames!

Early count:

- Heritage @ ~52 points (up from 50 last year)
- Open de Espana @ ~24 points (down from 30 last year)

- Top 3 are safe for the time being.
- Sned and Luke could aspire to #4 only if they finish top 2
- Sergio could squeeze into top 10 with a win

Getting into the higher echelon is always tougher (and should be that way), but on top of that there has been an added 'hump' in the 25-30 range for a while and will continue to remain there for the time being, making it even tougher for lower ranked 'intruders' to get in with anything other than a big(ish) win... For example, Zach Johnson who is now #29, could only hope to move max. to #25 with a solo 2nd this week, or as high as #20, if he's lucky, with a win.

Really looking forward to this week on Tour(s) - always enjoy The Masters but it's become too much of a sycophantic circle jerk.
Sad to see the decline of the Open de Espana, but still have faith that the European Tour will rise again. Starting in Europe.

Interesting to see what Olesen decides. If he goes stateside it will be a huge loss for the ET.

Is (20)13 the European Tours unlucky number?

Confirmacion de los puntos OWGR - 16a semana:

- El Patrimonio (Puerto de la Ciudad) - 52 puntos
- Abierto de Espana (El Saler, Valencia) - 24 puntos
- Abierto del Centro (Cordoba) - 8 puntos (gracias Angel!!)

Adios...!

I am pretty sure Angel would still have gone to play Latino America event if he had won last week.

Interesting that he is getting beat by 5 players I have never heard of.