This past weekend we witnessed an odd phenomena in golf. No, it wasn’t that Phil Mickelson blew up at Pebble Beach and limped in with a 74 to finish third in his defense of the AT&T. But cheers to Phil for a decent week. Instead, we saw a change atop the world rankings where Rory McIlroy replaced Brooks Koepka for the top spot.
The odd thing about it was that neither player swung a club. With both of them absent from Pebble the complicated formula that determines the Official World Golf Rankings crunched another week of numbers and came up with Rory sneaking past Brooks by a mere 3/100th of a point.
It’s the first time McIlroy has been back in the top spot since September of 2015 and it ends Koepka’s reign at 38 weeks.
While the rankings are a relatively new method in choosing the top player in golf (they began in 1986) the majors are the true measuring stick golfers and golf fans recognize. That isn’t to demean the value of the OWGR. Certainly, a player ranked highly must be playing well and taking home some hardware but it is possible to earn the top ranking without a major championship victory on his resume.
Lee Westwood and Luke Donald are examples of good players, who at the top of their game earned number one in the OWGR without winning a major.
McIlroy and Koepka could be dueling for number one for awhile if Koepka returns to his healthy self and McIlroy continues his resurgence. We know McIlroy has his eyes set on The Masters come April to complete his career grand slam and Koepka certainly wants to show him that he means business. It wasn’t too long ago that Brooks threw shade at Rory with his assessment of Rory’s game, “I’ve been out here for, what, five years. Rory hasn’t won a major since I’ve been on the PGA Tour.”
That’s as antagonistic as you normally get on the PGA Tour (except for Patrick Reed of course) and a lively bit of rivalry and competition is definitely good for the game.
I have a feeling Rory and Brooks will be going at it for quite some time.
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