Tiger Woods To Lose No. 1 Ranking in Four Days

For the first time in five years, Tiger Woods will relinquish his place atop the World Golf Rankings. 

In exactly four days, either Lee Westwood or Martin Kaymer will take over the number-one spot from Woods.

Kaymer can take over the top spot if he finishes in a two-way tie for second or better this week at Valderrama.

If Kaymer is unable to snatch the top spot on the golf course, Westwood will become golf’s new top dog while sitting on his couch in Worksop, England.

One way or the other, Woods will not be the number one player in the world when he enters next week’s WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai.  It will be the first time in 281 weeks that such an occurrence will take place.

Although few would argue that a changing of the guard atop the World Golf Rankings is unwarranted, many would argue that it is long overdue.

Woods has not played like the number-one player in the world since his run-in with the fire hydrant last November. Yet it has taken a full year for him to be official knocked off his pedestal.

Jim Furyk has won three times in 2010, including the FedEx Cup title. He is currently ranked sixth in the world.

Steve Stricker has two wins and nine top-10 finishes in 2010, garnering a 5th-place ranking.

Kaymer has won four times this year around the world, including the PGA Championship. He presently falls into the three spot.

Westwood won earlier this year, had two second place finishes at majors and tied for fourth at the Players Championship.  He’s ranked second.

Woods, on the other hand, has just two top-10 finishes this year and hasn’t won an event since the 2009 Australian Masters.

You see, the World Golf Ranking system has been flawed for quite some time. Its flaws are only being exposed now because, for the first time in more than a decade, it’s unclear who the number one player in the world really is.

From the late 90s through 2004, Woods was clearly the number one player in professional golf.

When Woods was overtaken by Vijay Singh in September of 2004, it was clear that Singh was the number one player in the world—he had won nine events that year including the PGA Championship.

From mid-2005—when Woods regained his top spot just prior to the U.S. Open at Pinehurst—until last November’s fire hydrant incident, Woods was without question the best player on the face of the planet.

The World Golf Rankings evaluate a player’s performance over a two-year period and the system has remained relatively unchanged over the past decade.

One of the reasons why very little attention was paid to a system that has been flawed all along: we had never seen a top-ranked player fall as hard and as fast as Woods did in 2010. The World Golf Ranking system was grossly unprepared for what transpired.

The thing is, whoever is ranked number-one or number-two in the world is of little consequence.

The flawed World Golf ranking system is really hurting those ranked between 40th and 60th.

Being ranked in the top-50 in the world gets you into major championships and many invitational tournaments.

The only reason why Graeme McDowell was even in the 2010 U.S. Open was because he had snuck into the top-50 in the world with a win at the Wales Open.

Prior to his win last week at the Iskandar Johor Open, Padraig Harrington hadn’t won a professional tournament since the 2008 PGA Championship. Yet, somehow, he is still ranked 19th in the world.

Justin Rose won twice this year on the PGA Tour, but is only ranked 24th.

Ryo Ishikawa, Heath Slocum and Ben Crane have all won PGA Tour events this year and they’re ranked outside of the top-50 in the world.

Bill Haas has won twice on the PGA Tour this year and he’s ranked 59th.

How does one possibly explain that?

The fact of the matter is this: with high-quality golf tournaments taking place 52 weeks of the year all around the world, a two year evaluation period is far too long of a time frame.

Who is ranked number first, second, or even 15th is trivial.

When guys are being excluded from big-time events and potentially missing out on millions of dollars in earnings because a severely flawed system has them ranked 53rd instead of 49th it’s clear that a change needs to occur.

Does anyone really think that Harrington (19th) was a better player than Haas (59th) during the 2010 season?

Harrington hasn’t played like a top-20 player since late 2008.

And Woods hasn’t played like the number one player in the world since late 2009.