Rankings don’t make any sense, says Rahm
Spaniard fails to move up after third win in five tournaments
JON RAHM has renewed his criticism of golf’s ranking system after his third win in five starts failed to bump him up the standings. The Spaniard produced a stunning recovery from seven strokes behind Collin Morikawa to win the Tournament of Champions in Hawaii on Sunday.
However, he remains No 5 in the world due to the quirks of the reforms introduced last year that weigh favourably towards the depth of a field rather than its pound-forpound strength.
That meant the 38-man Tournament of Champions received fewer points than a full-field tournament, despite featuring 17 of the world’s top 20.
Rahm slaughtered the changes as ‘laughable’ ahead of winning the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai and was again critical after his victory in Hawaii.
He said: ‘Will I pass Patrick Cantlay (the world No 4)? Because since the (FedEx Cup) play-offs I’ve won three times, and I don’t even get close to him. So I’m trying to understand what’s going on.’
Rahm, who in addition to three wins in five has also had ties for second and fourth, added: ‘Had they not changed the world ranking points I would have been pretty damn close (to No 1) right now.
‘But in my mind, I feel like since August I’ve been the best player in the world.
‘Earlier in the year clearly Scottie Scheffler was that player, then Rory McIlroy (the current No 1) was that player, and I feel like right now it’s been me.
‘Anybody any given year can get a hot three, four months and get to that spot. It’s the level of golf we’re at nowadays. It’s very difficult to stay up there and it requires a lot of golf.’
Of his victory, Rahm said: ‘If you told me at the beginning of the round, after that bogey, I was going to do what I did I don’t know if I would have believed you. You’ve just got to start making birdies so I did.’ Morikawa admitted to reporters he was feeling ‘sadness’ after play ended. ‘Sadness. I don’t know. It sucks. You work so hard and you give yourself these opportunities and just bad timing on bad shots and kind of added up really quickly,’ he said.