New Delhi, India, March 26: With lucrative events such as WGCs and Majors looming, the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR) becomes all important. Here we follow the Asian Tour players that are making a charge up the rankings and their quest to play their way into these events via the OWGR.
By Olle Nordberg, Former Asian Tour and European Tour professional
Thailand’s Kiradech Aphibarnrat, currently ranked number 41 on the OWGR, is already eligible for all the above events.
Last week’s Maybank Championship saw Scott Hend win his 10th Asian Tour event, and his third win in an event co-sanctioned with the European Tour. The US$3 million event is the richest tournament co-sanctioned by the Asian Tour and European Tour in Asia.
Hend took home a winner’s cheque of US$500,000 and propelled to the top of the Habitat for Humanity Standings where he leads with a current haul of US$507,792.
With this week being the final week to qualify for The Masters before the cut-off date on March 31, the players mentioned below will have everything to play for as they seek good showings to boost their world rankings at the Hero Indian Open and the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play.
Harding did not play the Maybank Championship last week, electing to get some rest instead before travelling to Austin, Texas for the WGC-Dell Technologies Matchplay. By not playing, he dropped one spot to 49th position in this week’s updated OWGR ranking list.
He is now only one position clear of the 50th place, which is the final spot to receive an invitation to The Masters Tournament on April 11-14th. He may need a good week in Austin to secure his place at the Augusta National. If he gets though his group in the round-robin format first stage of the event he will be safe, otherwise a nervous weekend awaits.
Jazz continued his run of good form since late last year and added another top finish to his 2019 campaign in Kuala Lumpur last week. A third-place finish at the Maybank Championship moves him up seven places to number 71, a new career high for the young Thai star.
A win at this week’s Hero Indian Open would likely move him to number 51 in the rankings best case scenario, but it is difficult to tell before the points for this week’s events are announced later this week.
His Masters hopes might still be alive in any case since The Masters committee does occasionally extend special invitations to international players, which is what happened to Shubhankar Sharma last year following his Maybank Championship win.
A win in India this week would certainly help his case in this regard.
With a tied 41st place at the Maybank Championship Kitayama did not earn any OWGR points, however he still rose one spot up to 104th place this week. He is still only one good tournament away from breaking into the top 100, which should give him a special exemption into the US PGA Championship at Bethpage Black in New York May 16-19th. The cut-off date for being in the top 100 is May 5th.
With his brilliant win in Malaysia last week Hend moves up to number 134 on the OWGR, a gain of 113 spots and the first return to the top-150 since March last year. A solo-second place or win this week in India would see him back in the top 100 on the ranking list, where he was in late 2017.
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