OWGR - Week #11

That was just a fantastic win from Luke Donald at the Transitions and a quick return of the Englishman to world #1 ! The way he disposed of the other three in the play-off with his 2nd shot and that short putt was highly impressive. Congratulations to the other three 'finalists', with a special mention for Bae Sang-Moon, who is becoming very quickly a top class player on the PGA Tour and moving to #27 in the rankings after this week.
Congratulations also to Julien Quesne from France the winner of the Open de Andalucia. It was great to see once again the French camaraderie and celebrations and the champagne flowing on the 18th green. It was his first ever win on the European Tour (his previous best ever result was a T16 at the Madrid Masters in 2010) and a jump of around 140 places to somewhere in the #180s. Great to see Matteo playing very well once again and although his runner up finish moves him up only two places (to #61), it may well maintain him in the race for a last minute place in the Masters field next month.

Finally, congratulations also to David Lipsky from USA, who won (also after a play-off) the Handa Faldo Cambodian Masters on the Asian Tour. It is the second week in a row when an unranked golfer enters the OWGR with a win! So, he should move straight somewhere around the #450 spot...

The OWGR table after week #11 should looke like this:

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

Excrutiating for Els and Manassero, especially for Ernie. Now he's pretty much still got to finish second next week or win Houston.

Hope Rory tweets something amusing to Lukey.

Cheers pd

In fairness to Rory he did post two rather amusing tweets a few minutes ago:

Well I enjoyed it while it lasted! Congrats @LukeDonald! Impressive performance!

One good thing about today... My profile pic is now relevant again! Lol #everycloud

!!

Luke Donald getting closer to clinching a Ryder Cup spot, following Rory who seems to be done and dusted.
Rose and Westwood in strong position also.
Good starting four - time for some more of our guys to ignite their season.

American top twelve remain the same.

Ryo falls to 50th and does not continue his good play in Puerto Rico.

Chances are pretty good that he will need the pity invite to the Masters. He losing a win from his 52 tournament resume in the 36th week of 2010. and its nearly 5 points.

He probably needs a top 10 finish to not fall out of the top 50.

Paul Lawrie looks safe for an trip to Augusta.
Goosen, playing Tavistock and then getting his "blood spun". Not playing Bay Hill.

very strange the goose is playing in the tavistock if hes injured

Agreed hend0; I mentioned on my ballwasher thread that there at least FIVE golfers competing in the "Tavistock" money-for-nothing nonsense that have either withdrawn from an event in the past three weeks, or have pulled out of Bay Hill citing injury.

But princedrac might note that there are two other withdrawals so far this week, Fatty Marino probably having his lap band fixed, and Chris Kirk who is on paternity leave.

Greg Owen and Erik Compton are the beneficiaries, but imagine owgr to be negligible.

Probably need to confirmation from PD, but looking ahead to the Masters and the #1 ranking, it almost guaranteed that Rory will become #1 as long as he finishes ahead of Luke.

Luke remains number 1 if he beats or ties Rory.

There are some unlikely scenarios where both Rory and Luke finish well back in the back and even if Rory beats Luke, Luke remains #1.

FWIW, there are some scenarios where Westy can become #1. winning at Houston and/or Masters and I did ignore those scenarios for simplicity

I watched about 5 minutes of the Tavistock last night, but caught the interview with Ernie. The interviewer asked some real brave questions about the collapse the day before and Ernie gave some fantasticcally frank and honest replies.

Great to get an honest insight rather than the usual bland stuff.

Despite the W/Ds mentioned by kwini from Arnie's show, there seems to have been some additions as well since last time I checked (plus the owgr changes after Transitions), and all that seems to have brought the Bay Hill back to some respectability. Looking now to be worth 56 points (Tiger included). Still below the Transitions and its own 2011 level though...

There's some good and bad news for Ernie this week:
- bad news: he's dropping to #66 due to some bad luck on the weekly amortisation front
- good news (of sorts) is that with Bay Hill at 56 pts, a solo 2nd could also be enough to see him through into the top 50

Otherwise, the top 3 are practically locked as they are until the Masters, but there are three players this week who could take #4 spot from Kaymer with a win at Bay Hill: Simpson, Rose and Lefty. Tiger could move to #6 with a win...

And indeed, Matteo could move up inside the top 50 with a victory in Marocco, while the RRock could make it even with a solo 2nd, but he'll need a lot of luck as well on top of that...

ScottieD18 wrote:I watched about 5 minutes of the Tavistock last night, but caught the interview with Ernie. The interviewer asked some real brave questions about the collapse the day before and Ernie gave some fantasticcally frank and honest replies.

Great to get an honest insight rather than the usual bland stuff.

if anyone has a link would love to hear it!

How many OWGR points do the tavistock winners get?

McLaren wrote:How many OWGR points do the tavistock winners get?

Fortunately none...

Someone has said similar already, but I really don't understand this Tavistock thing. Is it for charity? Yes, at least partly / on the face of it. But do the participants receive money? Yes, and it would seem lots of it. Even more peculiar seeing a team from a different sport on the sponsor list (Orlando Magic*) seeing as you'd normally think of such franchises having their own sponsors. Still, Tom Lewis managed to sneak himself in by whatever means - hopefully good experience for him to play a bit more in the US and perhaps learn something from some of the more seasoned and decorated participants.

* not that I have anything against the Magic; liked them from the Shaq / Penny days other than when they beat the Bulls, and I've liked what I've seen of Superman Dwight more recently

Princedracula, a question you may be able to answer... what's the highest world ranking points anyone has ever reached? I remember a few years back Tiger got to about 16 but is the record much higher than this?

incontinentia wrote:Princedracula, a question you may be able to answer... what's the highest world ranking points anyone has ever reached? I remember a few years back Tiger got to about 16 but is the record much higher than this?

Something of a similar question came up a while ago about the highest differences between #1 and #2 and at the time I was saying that it's not really possible or meaningful to compare things like that between different periods because the OWGR system and the points allocation have changed quite a few times and quite signifficantly. It's the same problem for your querry... for example Tiger at #1 had over 32 pts around 2001.... Then in the very early years of the owgr (late 80's) they didn't use 'average points' so someone like Norman or others used to lead with thousands of points... It really was I think from 2007 when the current system has been in place. But even after 2007 Tiger used to have well over 20 pts at some stage...

Tiger was consistently about the 20 point mark for a number of years. His nearest challencer usually was around the 8 to 10 point mark.....................

Bjorn and Van Pelt have withdrawn from "Bay Hill".

cross snap, kwini

Looks like we're still inside the 56 pts bracket, but getting very close to 54, so not too much to update on the owgr front so far, but will confirm the final count the next day or so...

Just another mention for Ernie... there was a good article written yesterday by Doug Ferguson on Ernie's situation and why he thinks he should not get an invite to Augusta... Potentially a controversial point of view, but I tend to agree with him in a way (not sure the reasons are the same). I think Ernie has a lot to blame himself (and his people) for realising and reacting rather late to this situation. He showed some clear signs of returning to form very early in the year (even end of last year) and as I've said at the time, it was very surprising to me that he didn't turn up to play in 1-2 other events before the two WGC's. He was very fortunate to make the Match Play in extremis, as we know, and he put himself under a lot of added pressure these days because now he's been running out of time and events... Having said all that, would certainly love to see him wining this week or next and make it to Augusta. Here's the article...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5giy2imkoG4WraFBLkuMyhIRkakqQ?docId=ff8d562c0a804082ac30d59fb8aaef93

pd,
Agree, I posted a comment on it yesterday on his sports.yahoo.com by-line!
Actually more on Ryo getting in.

Got say I am not sure why Els would get an invite given that he has had 12 months to win an event or move up the rankings. Instead he has slipped back and never looked capable of winning even leading up the final stretch.

Although having said that, I like the idea that the masters is a fully invitational event where players are picked by the committee. That way the integrity of the event is fully down to the choices made by the guys in green jackets. If they had this freedom the prudent thing to do would be to devise a system where all the top 50-60 players get in, if the fail to do so then the masters is exposed for what the guys in green probably want it to be.

The "top 50" players DO get in . . . .

To make my point clearer. I propose the masters has no published criteria for invitation and certainly nothing guaranteed. Leave it up to the committee and lets see what they would do. My point being that they should invite the top 50-60 in this scenario if they want the event to remain credible.

All very well, Mac, but the players would need to know what they have to do to gain entry.
Can't just have 70 or 80 golfers hanging around in the last week of March waiting for Postie to turn up to see if there's an envelope from Billy Payne.

I'm more or less OK with the eligibility criteria except that I'd demand that past Champions over a certain age (55?) provide evidence (via Senior/Champo Tour performance) that they are still competitive.

I'm OK with some amateurs, but not the mid-amateur, but would definitely say one special invite is all you get.
Inviting Ishikawa again is an insult to better players.

"Can't just have 70 or 80 golfers hanging around in the last week of March waiting for Postie to turn up to see if there's an envelope from Billy Payne."

Why not, it is not like their lives are particularly taxing is it?


Back to reality and as I have said many times before, and I trust the OWGR rankings, as long as a major has all the current top 50 then it is good enough for me. I would rather see those playing well in the intermediate and shorter term (the top 50) win than someone gaining entry from outside the top 100 and fluking one.

Final count, as anticipated: Bay Hill @ 56 and Marocco @ 24 pts

Made a small error initially when I assessed Els's chances, he has also an outside chance to make it to #50 with a solo 3rd. Ryo will be down to 53 after amortization and needs to finish 34th or better to interfere with the #50 cutline...

Three players have to pass Crane to knock him out of the Masters. Crane missed the cut so we know what he will be at Monday morning. I think his avg will be 2.703.

I don't think idle players Ogilvy (2.695) or Jimenez (2.653) will pass him.

Ishikawa, Furyk and Woodland are the only players in the 50's that are playing the weekend and they are out of position.

of course there a bunch of players that will pass him with a win this weekend, but Crane looks really like he can book Hotel Reservations in Augusta, if he hasn't done it already.

This is how things look after Rd2 at Bay Hill and 1.5 rounds in Morocco...

....
40 Anders Hansen
41 Rickie Fowler
42 K.T. Kim
43 Zach Johnson
44 Francesco Molinari
45 Fredrik Jacobson
46 Paul Lawrie
47 Geoff Ogilvy
48 Kyle Stanley
49 Ben Crane
50 Miguel A Jimenez
-----------------------------------------------
51 Gonzalo Fdez-Castano
52 Retief Goosen
53 Ryo Ishikawa
54 Jim Furyk
55 Jonathan Byrd
56 Y.E. Yang
57 Darren Clarke
58 Gary Woodland
59 Robert Rock
60 Greg Chalmers
61 Matteo Manassero
62 Ernie Els
63 Johnson Wagner
64 Charles Howell-III
65 Rafael Cabrera Bello
66 Kevin Na
67 Robert Allenby
68 Nicolas Colsaerts
69 Robert Garrigus
70 Charlie Wi
....

In other words, very few changes of significance, apart from Charlie Wi's head popping up in there. That by the way, is based on him finishing 2nd alone, if he wins, he could move 'only' as high as #56.
GPB, regarding Crane, Ogilvy certainly moves ahead of him, which means you're then talking of only two other guys who would have to pass him (hopefully by Matteo and Ernie if I would have a choice in this). In practical terms I think he still has a very good chance to make it in the end, but I don't think Mr. Payne would've started to write his invitation just yet...
Guys like Na, CHIII or Wagner would need to finish 2nd to interfere with the #50 cutline, and those below their level (VJ, Moore, etc.) could do that only with a win.

pd,
The other wild card is Ishikawa who could get past Crane with a more modest finish - if he's worthy.

Great look!

And heartily agree about Matteo and Big Ernie!

Shame about Rock - looks like scores much lower in R2.

What a day! Many of those who could affect the top 50 situation have played great and made big strides upwards: Ernie, Matteo, CHIII, Wagner, Na, etc. Should be an interesting day tomorrow....

It would be wUnderful if Matteo could clinch the win before the Bay Hill denouement; given your top 50 from yesterday, I'd like to see Matteo and Ernie make the top 50 and let the rest of the chips fall where they may.

(Furyk another who could interfere with things!)

If Matteo does win tomorrow, is there any way the stars could align and he still not get in the Masters.

Meaning Furyk, Ryo, Ernie, Wagner, Howell all crash the top 50 with solid finishes?

(I don't want that to happen, I want to see Manassero in Augusta).

Here are the updated rankings after yesterday...

...
40 Anders Hansen
41 Rickie Fowler
42 K.T. Kim
43 Zach Johnson
44 Francesco Molinari
45 Fredrik Jacobson
46 Paul Lawrie
47 Geoff Ogilvy
48 Kyle Stanley
49 Ben Crane
50 Miguel A Jimenez
-------------------------------------------
51 Ryo Ishikawa
52 Gonzalo Fdez-Castano
53 Retief Goosen
54 Ernie Els
55 Jim Furyk
56 Matteo Manassero
57 Jonathan Byrd
58 Gary Woodland
59 Y.E. Yang
60 Darren Clarke
61 Robert Rock
62 Johnson Wagner
63 Greg Chalmers
64 Charles Howell-III
65 Kevin Na
66 Rafael Cabrera Bello
67 Robert Allenby
68 Nicolas Colsaerts
69 Robert Garrigus
70 George Coetzee
71 Spencer Levin
72 Sean O'Hair
73 Joost Luiten
74 Chez Reavie
75 Ryan Moore
76 Vijay Singh
77 Jaco Van Zyl
78 Jeff Overton
79 Alexander Noren
80 Rory Sabbatini
...

It'll be a bit annoying, to say the least, to see that Ishikawa after he got his silly Masters invitation, may well end up screwing some other guys chances to get there on top of that...

GPB, didn't check all the possibilities there, but if Matteo wins he will move above Ogilvy so it'll be very hard to see him missing out on the top 50...

If nothing dramatic happens, Tiger should get to #10 with a solo second. McDowell will win, of course, and move to #6...

Super Sunday!
All rhetoric about invitations apart, you'd have to say Matteo has put himself in primo position.
If he's good enough, he's off to Augusta.
If not, hopefully he can make up for it next year.