World rankings show the wild year that was
The final Official World Golf Ranking of the year was published Monday. Rory McIlroy ends the year at No. 1 for the third time. Four players among the top 50 — Ryan Fox, Sepp Straka, Sahith Theegala, and Kurt Kitayama — started the year outside the top 50. (Justin Rose finished the year outside the top 50 in the world ranking for the first time since 2009.)
Also worth noting is the effect on Saudifunded LIV Golf.
Eight players who were in the top 25 a year ago are now with LIV Golf — Dustin Johnson (3), Bryson DeChambeau (5), Louis Oosthuizen (10), Brooks Koepka (16), Abraham Ancer (17), Jason Kokrak (20), Cameron Smith (21), and Patrick Reed (25).
LIV did not receive ranking points since it began in June, and there is no indication when the OWGR will offer them. Now, only two LIV golfers — Smith at No. 3 and Joaquin Niemann
at No. 22 — are among the top 25.
In some cases, injuries or mediocre play contributed to the slide before LIV came along, such as DeChambeau or Matthew Wolff.
The biggest fall belonged to Phil Mickelson,
who sat out four months and has only one top10 finish — his win at the 2021 PGA Championship — in the last two years. Mickelson ended last year at No. 33. He ends this year at No. 213.
It’s the first time Mickelson has been out of the top 200 in the world ranking since late July 1992 — a year before Jordan Spieth was born. Mickelson was runner-up to Brad Faxon in the New England Classic (at Pleasant Valley CC in Sutton) and moved to No. 175.
Audience with the King
Mark O’Meara keeps every Masters invitation and dinner menu from the Masters Club gathering on Tuesday night. But he’s not big on getting players to sign memorabilia, with one exception: He never had an autograph from Arnold Palmer.
This was in 2016, which turned out to be the last Masters for Palmer. He died some five months later.
O’Meara went to his locker to fetch a Masters flag and went looking for the King.
“He’s sitting with Tiger [Woods] at the little table and I said, ‘Hey, AP, would you sign this flag? It will only be mine. I won’t sell it. I’d really appreciate it,’ ” O’Meara said. “He looks right at me and goes, ‘You think I’m going somewhere?’”
O’Meara said Palmer took the flag and delivered one of golf ’s most famous signatures. O’Meara thanked him and got up to leave.
“He grabs me by the arm and says, ‘I’m not done with you yet,’ ” O’Meara said.
He said he was startled briefly, but only until Palmer starting asking questions about O’Meara and his wife and family.
“Typical Arnold Palmer,” O’Meara said. “We miss him dearly.”
Different roads
Annika Sorenstam’s first time inside the ropes at a professional men’s tournament was on the European tour at the Scandinavian Enterprise Open. She was a caddie.
“I was on the national team, and my sister
[Charlotta] and I went to caddie, and there was another girl there,” Sorenstam said. “At that time, people didn’t have regular caddies. You showed up early and waited in the parking lot. Of course, we were the last ones picked.”
She recalls caddying for Peter Teravainen, and while he missed the cut, Sorenstam felt rich by the end of the week.
“He played balata golf balls. They were expensive, and he changed them out on every hole, which I couldn’t believe,” she said. “And he gave them to me, and so my pockets were filled with balata balls.”
At the end of the week, the other girl in the parking lot had such a good time as a caddie that she asked Sorenstam if she had any interest in joining her at the next stop, the PLM Open, in the south of Sweden.
“I said: ‘That’s not what I want to do. I have to go practice,’ ” said Sorenstam, who went on to a pair of US Women’s Open titles, 72 wins on the LPGA Tour, and 10 majors.
That other girl was Fanny Sunesson. She caddied that week for Jaime Gonzalez, which led to Jose Rivero, Howard Clark, and eventually to Nick Faldo and two of his Masters titles.
They worked that day at Ullna Golf and Country Club, which next year hosts the Scandinavian Mixed. Sorenstam will be the tournament host.
Quite the appetizer
Faldo, on a Masters Club dinner this year at Augusta National with six LIV defectors in attendance: “I really assume it will be an atmosphere. It’s got to be an atmosphere. There’s a few hard-nosed guys who might want to say something.”