McIlroy falls out of world's top five
Rory McIlroy. Picture: PGA of America
Rory McIlroy’s missed cut in the Dell Technologies Championship has seen him slip from fourth to sixth in the world — his worst ranking for more than three years.
Ranked fourth in the world starting the week, the injury-hit 28-year old has been overtaken by tournament winner Justin Thomas and Spain’s Jon Rahm, who finished tied for fourth in Boston.
McIlroy has been battling a rib injury this year and played just 15 events.
As a result of his missed cut in Boston, he is now 51st in the FedEx Cup standings and travels to Conway Farms in Chicago for the BMW Championship next week knowing he must finish in the top three if he is to make the Top 30 who qualify for the Tour Championship.
It's the first time McIlroy has been ranked outside the top five in the world since 13 July 2014.
On that occasion, he went to Royal Liverpool for The Open ranked eighth behind Adam Scott (now 20th), Henrik Stenson (now 7th), Justin Rose (now 15th), Bubba Watson (now 50th), Matt Kuchar (now 13th), Jason Day (now 9th) and Tiger Woods (now 1,130th).
McIlroy wasn’t ranked eighth for long as he won The Open, the WGC Bridgestone Invitational and the US PGA in his next three starts to return to world No 1.
He remained there until 16 August 2015, when Jordan Spieth took over for the first time.
McIlroy twice regained the No 1 ranking (for a week each time) at Spieth’s expense in August and September 2015.
But Day took over as No 1 when he won two of the first three events in the FedEx Cup playoffs that year.
The Australian then swapped the No 1 spot twice with Spieth over the next few months, regaining it for 47 weeks in March last year.
Dustin Johnson then took over by winning the Genesis Open at The Riviera Country Club in February.
World's Top 10
- Ranking (last week)
- 1 (1) Dustin Johnson 12.3406
- 2 (2) Jordan Spieth 10.4101
- 3 (3) Hideki Matsuyama 9.2082
- 4 (6) Justin Thomas 8.0771
- 5 (5) Jon Rahm 7.4338
- 6 (4) Rory McIlroy 6.8083
- 7 (8) Henrik Stenson 6.6645
- 8 (7) Sergio Garcia 6.5072
- 9 (9) Jason Day 6.3485
- 10 (10) Rickie Fowler 6.0541
Other Irish
- 83 (80) Shane Lowry 1.7508
- 123 (120) Graeme McDowell 1.2818
- 154 (154) Padraig Harrington 1.1155
- 181 (176) Paul Dunne 0.9619
- 281 (286) Seamus Power 0.6775
