OWGR - March 2016

First topic message reminder :

Here is what the OWGR rankings should look like on March 7th, 2016.

 

1	Jordan	Spieth		11.355
2	Rory	McIlroy		9.870
3	Jason	Day		9.637
4	Bubba	Watson		9.016
5	Rickie	Fowler		8.184
6	Adam	Scott		7.481
7	Henrik	Stenson		7.186
8	Justin	Rose		6.221
9	Dustin	Johnson		5.995
10	Patrick	Reed		4.900
11	Danny	Willett		4.724
12	Branden	Grace		4.702
13	Sergio	Garcia		4.677
14	Hideki	Matsuyama		4.526
15	Jim	Furyk		4.368
16	Brandt	Snedeker		4.106
17	Phil	Mickelson		4.023
18	Louis	Oosthuizen		4.004
19	Brooks	Koepka		4.001
20	Zach	Johnson		3.989
21	Kevin	Kisner		3.919
22	Jimmy	Walker		3.476
23	J.B.	Holmes		3.425
24	Shane	Lowry		3.278
25	Paul	Casey		3.276
26	Kevin	Na		3.223
27	Byeong Hun	An		3.191
28	Matt	Kuchar		3.184
29	Marc	Leishman		3.170
30	Andy	Sullivan		3.138
31	Justin	Thomas		2.980
32	Charl	Schwartzel		2.939
33	Russell	Knox		2.874
34	Danny	Lee		2.769
35	Emiliano	Grillo		2.753
36	Bernd	Wiesberger		2.749
37	Thongchai	Jaidee		2.729
38	David	Lingmerth		2.617
39	Victor	Dubuisson		2.616
40	Martin	Kaymer		2.605
41	Billy	Horschel		2.564
42	Soren	Kjeldsen		2.556
43	Bill	Haas		2.555
44	Kiradech	Aphibarnrat		2.518
45	Chris	Wood		2.514
46	Matthew	Fitzpatrick		2.508
47	Scott	Piercy		2.495
48	Robert	Streb		2.467
49	Smylie	Kaufman		2.343
50	Anirban	Lahiri		2.321
----Masters Bubble
51	Jaco	Van Zyl		2.317
52	Jamie	Donaldson		2.290
53	Rafael	Cabrera Bello		2.239
54	Chris	Kirk		2.189
55	Graeme	McDowell		2.183
56	Fabian	Gomez		2.170
57	Daniel	Berger		2.158	*
58	Matt	Jones		2.152
59	Charley	Hoffman		2.145	*
60	Lee	Westwood		2.141
61	Ryan	Moore		2.123	*
62	Jason	Dufner		2.122	*
63	Marcus	Fraser		2.107
64	Ian	Poulter		2.068	*
65	Thorbjorn	Olesen		2.057
66	Thomas	Pieters		2.049	**
---------
67	Ryan	Palmer		2.012	*
68	Patton	Kizzire		2.000	*
69	Gary	Woodland		1.983	*
70	Harris	English		1.964	*
71	Kristoffer	Broberg		1.962	**
72	Shingo	Katayama		1.949	**
73	K.T.	Kim		1.932
74	Jason	Bohn		1.905
75	Webb	Simpson		1.865	*
76	Brendan	Steele		1.820
77	Joost	Luiten		1.801	**
78	George	Coetzee		1.800
79	Steven	Bowditch		1.767	*
80	Francesco	Molinari		1.737	*
81	Tommy	Fleetwood		1.730
82	Ricardo	Gouveia		1.712
83	Russell	Henley		1.697
84	Cameron	Tringale		1.669
85	Ross	Fisher		1.664
86	Dean	Burmester		1.642
87	Hunter	Mahan		1.599
88	Keegan	Bradley		1.595
89	Marc	Warren		1.594
90	Luke	Donald		1.586
91	Yuta	Ikeda		1.566
92	John	Senden		1.560
93	Ben	Martin		1.530
94	Alexander	Levy		1.510
95	Cameron	Smith		1.496
96	Vaughn	Taylor		1.494
97	Tony	Finau		1.490
98	Freddie	Jacobson		1.487
99	James	Morrison		1.474
100	Hiroshi	Iwata		1.474
101	Yusaku	Miyazato		1.457
102	Alexander	Noren		1.454
103	K.J.	Choi		1.453

Everyone in the top 50 is already exempt for the 2016 Masters, bolded players out of the top 50 are also already exempt for the 2016 Masters.

#57-#80 are considered bubble players for the 2016 Matchplay.  If they have no asterisk, it means they are not playing next week.  If they have one asterisk, they are playing Valspar, in Tampa, if they have two asterisk, they are playing in Thailand.


I am assuming that only Stenson and Furyk are skipping the Match Play.

super_realist wrote:

GPB wrote:JAS-

Koepka gave up his EuroTour membership.

Traveling from Florida to California is not trivial.  But it does not involve immigration, visas, passports, customs, different currency, different languages like a Flight from London to Doha would require.

Going to Doha isn't a problem at all and language certainly isn't an issue.

I suspect it is a bigger hassle than traveling from Miami to Los Angeles.

As long as you have TSA Precheck!

If the WGC goes to Mexico City, the players will somehow have to climb over a tremendous wall.
Perhaps this is Finchem's ingenious plan to help the Mexicans pay for it.

Sr,
Don't you get accelerated pre-check via yr f/f status anyway?
I've got one of the original AAd cards with 2m miles on it and it works a treat.

Shotrock wrote: It's why the Open Championship has the lowest US viewership of all majors (certainly not the golf or venues).

Not surprising given the time difference but I get your point i.e. if even the Open can't get the comparable figures to it's Major peers what chance would a lesser tournament have? How do the Open viewing figures compare with say U.S. based WGC's or regular tour events.

Re MoO, by sponsoring the likes of Poulter & Stenson I'd say they must have at least one eye on expansion beyond the U.S. Add in Knox & Pettersen and a third of their golfing sponsorships are European. Yes 3 are U.S. based but 3 of the 4 double dip.

The world tour is a nice idea JAS, like the F1 calendar or tennis. Maybe in the future this will happen, probably by evolution rather than revolution.

I don't think it will work in the current context because the PGA Tour and ET have completely different business models:

The US tournaments have a large target market of sports fans with significant disposible income. There is a large TV audience able to watch prime time golf. The tour generally visits locations where these fans live, so attracts large paying crowds who are a captive audience and can be bombarded with advertising for the whole day. These fans also contribute to creating a great atmosphere for those watching on TV. This is attractive to sponsors.

Euro tournaments are generally the vanity projects of rich rulers or CEOs. Tournaments like the Qatar Open have no noble purpose like growing the game in the middle east. These events are barely promoted locally, garner little interest and are watched by sparse crowds. Due to time differences the golf is televised in the morning in the UK, the only significant European golf market, so viewer numbers are low. It's not just the middle east, how many Moroccans watched the Moroccan Open? Or the Indian Open? The tournaments in the UK are the only ones which genuinely have a large target audience. Sponsors are attracted because some businesses want to suck up to the host rulers. It's not a sustainable model.

Ray - Well put!

JAS - I don't think MoO is that forward thinking ... as a "mutual" company that ship turns very slowly, but who knows?

Kwin - I tend to fly quite a bit these days and even as a TSA Precheck enrollee, I sometimes get cycled out. Ugh.