Harrington nearer to world No 51 than No 1
Ireland has two men in the Top 10 but Padraig Harrington is now a lot closer to falling out of the world’s top 50 than he is to catching No 1 Lee Westwood at the top of the Official World Golf Ranking.
The Dubliner’s accidented start to the season - disqualified in Abu Dhabi and 58th in Bahrain - has seen him slip from 28th to 32nd in the world. That’s his lowliest ranking since 24 September 2000, when he had an average of 4.15 ranking points and trailed runaway No 1 Tiger Woods by more than 25 points.
Woods is now third in the world behind Westwood and Martin Kaymer. And while Harrington recently pointed out that he is mathematically nearer to world No 1 now than he was when he was world No 3 two years ago, he is also a lot closer to falling out of the world’s top 50.
The difference between Harrington’s world No 32 ranking of 2000 and his present situation is the tendency. Eleven years ago, Harrington made his Masters debut and moved up from 50th in December 1999 to 24th at the end of 2000. In January 2010 he was the world No 8.
The world’s top three remains unchanged with Phil Mickelson’s second place finish in the Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego good enough to see him regain his world No 4 ranking at the expense of Graeme McDowell.
Paul Casey moved up three places to sixth with Rory McIlroy down one to eighth and Torrey Pines winner Bubba Watson up 15 to 18th.
- Lee Westwood 8.746
- Martin Kaymer 8.141
- Tiger Woods 6.971
- Phil Mickelson 6.495
- Graeme McDowell 6.461
- Paul Casey 6.380
- Steve Stricker 6.027
- Rory McIlroy 5.938
- Jim Furyk 5.532
- Luke Donald 5.436
Other Irish:
32. Padraig Harrington (down 4) 3.263
102. Darren Clarke (up 10) 1.451
103. Gareth Maybin (up 3) 1.445
118. Peter Lawrie (down 1) 1.301
131. Damien McGrane (down 5) 1.230
170. Shane Lowry (no change) 0.978
384. Michael Hoey
459. Paul McGinley
507. Simon Thornton