Ladies and gentlemen, Lee Westwood is now officially the number one ranked golfer in the world. Given that he took the top spot from media machine Tiger Woods, I probably don’t even have to tell you that. Although the story of Westwood’s fall from a top player early last decade is a good one, nice stories don’t a great golfer make. Even including his European Tour play, Westwood has no career majors and fewer wins the last two years than Tiger Woods, newly vegetarian Phil Mickelson, Martin Kaymer, and Steve Stricker. While his consistent play over the last few years has put him at the apex of his sport, here are five reasons that Lee Westwood won’t last as the top golfer.
Number Five: It’s Packed at the Top
At this week’s WGC-HSBC Champions tournament in Shanghai, China, each of the world’s top four players will have an opportunity to walk away with the number one ranking. Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, and Martin Kaymer are all vying to steal the top spot from Lee Westwood, and the race looks like it could be tight for a while. Not to be left out, Steve Stricker and Jim Furyk are both within striking distance and while they aren’t in this week’s field, their presence will make for a close race at the onset of the 2011 season. If only because he has so many players to fend off, Lee Westwood will have a tough time keeping his fellow competitors down.
Number Four: History is Not on Lee’s Side
After Tiger’s historic win in the 1997 Masters, he underwent massive swing changes under the tutelage of his long-time swing coach, Butch Harmon. He went through an extended slump, during which he played in ten majors without winning a single one. From 1997 to the PGA Championship in 1999, Tiger battled the likes of Greg Norman, Ernie Els, and David Duval for the world’s top spot. With his ’99 PGA victory, Tiger overtook them once and for all. The following year he embarked on a stretch of golf that could be among the best of all time. In 2000, he recorded a fifth-place finish in the Masters, followed by the incredible Tiger Slam. Not since Bobby Jones in the 1930s had someone held all four of golf’s most important trophies.
Tiger won his third Masters in 2002 but again went through a ten-major drought. During the latter half of this second slump, he had a public spat with Butch Harmon and sought out the teachings of Hank Haney. In September of 2004, which Tiger was working out the kinks in his swing, Vijay Singh earned the top ranking. It took Tiger going 1st-2nd-1st in the season’s first three majors for him to regain the top spot for good.
Now, among swing changes, injuries, and infidelities, Tiger’s top ranking has again been stolen. If history tells us anything, it’s that Tiger Woods does not take losing his top spot lightly, and that he is going to work tirelessly to get it back.
Number Three: Everyone Else’s Play as of Late
Every autumn going into the Ryder or President’s Cup, golf fans and writers love to talk about how Tiger always seems out of it, or how he isn’t a team player. Sorry folks, but that’s just not true. In the 2009 President’s Cup Tiger went 5-0-0, better than any other player, and in the 2010 Ryder Cup Tiger went 3-1-0, as good as or better than everyone else. This year Tiger did that amid substantial swing changes, self-imposed personal turmoil, and the eminent loss of his top spot.
In addition, for a guy who supposedly couldn’t care less about team play, he sure looked into it after trouncing Francesco Molinari in his final day singles match and cheering on the U.S. as Rickie Fowler’s and Hunter Mahan’s matches reached the last few holes. In the next few weeks, Tiger will play in Shanghai, Thailand, Australia, and at his own tournament in California. While these tournaments combined will not count very much to the Official World Golf Rankings, they should serve well in gauging the state of Tiger’s golf game. If Tiger gets hot and starts knocking off wins, Lee Westwood might once again be in Tiger’s rearview mirror.
Tiger isn’t the only player who can ride a hot streak. When last we saw Jim Furyk he was collecting a tidy $10 million for his FedExCup victory, not to mention the cash for his three tournament wins in 2010. Martin Kaymer is, of course, your 2010 PGA Champion, but he also has three other wins this year, and two victories each of the prior two years. If the sheer number of his wins isn’t impressive enough, he has shown the ability to win in bunches. This year he won in August, September, and October, and last year Kaymer won twice in July. Martin Kaymer knows how to string wins together, something that Lee Westwood has never done.
Number Two: Sean Foley
Sean Foley might not be the great hope when it comes to golf instruction. He makes dumb statements (this just in, the “pop” you hear at PGA Tour driving ranges is not really the air escaping the ball’s seams as he once said), he tends to alienate those who have helped him, and he gets into feuds with Tour players (see Charlie Wi). However, he has shown through Hunter Mahan and Sean O’Hair that he knows how to teach. Foley has the potential to take many of Tiger’s swing faults (a poor backswing hand plane, a flat shoulder turn, lots of reliance on timing) and fix them so that he doesn’t hit just 57.21% of fairways and 64.07% of greens. Those numbers would have put Tiger at an abysmal 162nd place and 164th place, respectively, if he had played enough this year to qualify. With Sean Foley in his camp (and maybe more importantly, Hank Haney far, far away), Tiger Woods has an opportunity to once again prove that he is the greatest and most dynamic golfer in the world today, and possibly ever.
Number One: Lee Isn’t a Closer
The #1 spot in the Official World Golf Ranking seems to repel everyone but Tiger Woods. Coming into 2010, Tiger had a nearly six-point lead over #2 Phil Mickelson, and an almost seven-point lead over #3 Steve Stricker. By August, while Stricker had fallen back, Phil had closed to within 0.4 points, and every week a high finish would have given him the number one ranking. In typical Phil fashion, he was never able to pull it off, and at he seemed to actually play worse when he had a chance at the top spot. This poor play by Mickelson and Stricker throughout the year does not bode well for Westwood.
Steve Stricker was able to pick up his second win of the year in July, but he currently resides in fifth place thanks to Martin Kaymer’s three wins and Jim Furyk’s hot play in the FedExCup Playoffs. Although Kaymer’s wins shot him up the rankings, he has been unable to capture the top spot and he is currently in third place, ahead of Furyk in fourth.
Lee Westwood’s second-place finishes in 2010’s first two majors, combined with many months of overall consistent play, have earned him just enough points to finally overtake a fast-falling Tiger. Not only have Phil and Steve proven that they couldn’t scrap out a win when it would have put them in the top spot, Westwood has shown with his many runner up finishes that he is not the closer that one needs to be to hold onto the top spot. Westwood has had opportunities to win majors each of the last three years, but every time he has had a chance to take control of the tournament, he has faltered down the stretch.
In the end, his current top ranking is not so much due to his own strong play, but due to the relative poor play of Tiger Woods, coupled with the fact that Tiger has not played very often. At the start of 2010, Tiger had about 14.4 points, while Westwood had about 6.5 points. While Tiger has lost a whopping 6 points, Westwood has gained just over 1.7 points. Westwood is mathematically in the top spot in the rankings not because he is killing it out there, but because Tiger Woods has stunk it up most of the year. Westwood needs to prove that he can go out and grab it, and he has yet to do so.
Conclusion and Your Thoughts?
Lee Westwood might be the mathematical leader of the Official World Golf Rankings, but his reign won’t last. Lee has stiff competition from the likes of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Martin Kaymer, Steve Stricker, and Jim Furyk. Like the NFL team that loses its last few games yet still makes the playoffs, Westwood has “backed” into to the top spot thanks to the poor play of his competitors. While Lee may be consistent, to gain long term control of the top spot one needs to win and win often, something Lee has never done. With many of the world’s greatest players hot on his heels, Westwood will likely not hold onto his number one ranking for very long.
So where do you stand? Will Lee Westwood last? Will Phil finally break through to achieve a career-long goal of his? Or will Tiger take it back?
Lee is currently second, ahead of his rivals. Will be interesting to see what happens. Personally I would love to see more competition for the top spot than we’ve seen in recent years!
Some interesting stats, though… and almost stats that seem to be saying opposite things.
1: if you consider points earned in 2010 only, Tiger isn’t in the top 50 in the OWGR.
2: if you stop dividing Tiger’s total by 40 (the minimum divisor) and instead divide by the number of events in which he’s actually played, he’d still have a 2.7-point lead!
The long and the short of it is this: Tiger needs to get better REALLY fast or else the points he got in 2009 will start falling off and not being replaced well enough to overcome 2010’s points.
Depending on how quickly his game rebounds, Tiger might be more likely to fall out of the top five or ten as to regain the top spot.
Fancy that, the man who refuses to join the PGATour – also known as the centre of the golfing universe – being pilloried for ending the 281-week reign of Woods – also known as the centre of the centre of the golfing universe.
IMO, it has been an impressive but laborious grind to the top, which would have come a lot quicker but for his injury setback.
But if anything can be confidently predicted in golf, then it is that Westwood would have carried on collecting ranking points in the last three months and taken Woods’ mantle in what his critics deem to be “the right way”.
I would not bet the farm on that one
He may not win tournaments but he gets in contention and is consistently up there, that’s how he became #1 and he further proved it finishing 2nd on the weekend. He could have easily won but was rusty from not playing recently.
Tiger will be #1 again next year, you can see he’s on his way back. Once he gets his putting right it will be all over.
The whole beat up of Lee not joining the PGA is a joke, he doesn’t want to play the increased number of required tournaments. He got to #1 playing in Europe, why change.
Back in the day American golfers used to not bother paying the British Open, there are plenty of current day American golfers who don’t play much/if any international golf. People is glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
After reading this article, I want to take up drugs much like the author!
I’m almost convinced he’s paid by the Tiger Woods publicity machine.
The article is about Lee Westwood but Tiger gets mentioned 34 times!!!
When I pay good money to form a part of the gallery at an open, I’m paying to see good golfers – not great has-beens!
Numbers don’t lie. Lee has collected the most point during the last two years. For this period of time, noone has played more consistent.
The “hottest player”-award this years goes to Martin Kaymer, who won 4 times including a major and who leads the Race to Dubai by over 500.000 Euros.
Tiger was nothing this year. He can live with it, because noone had to handle more issues within the last 12 months. He’ll come back, that’s for sure. He didn’t play well at the HSBC and finished T6 – that shows how good he is.
For Furyk and Stricker, they are overrated. I don’t think they can battle with the three mentioned above for the #1 spot.
Phil needs to shine when it counts. His 12 or so tries to make the #1 spot are an own story. It was the same when he tried to win his first major. But for me he has the most entertaining game of them all. Noone can do the things Phil does around the greens. Noone plays more aggressive. He’s my personal No. 1 when it comes to entertainment on the course. And that’s why companies pay the price funds they do today. Playing-Professionals are entertainers. They are paid to entertain us. Noone of the mentioned does it better than Phil.
Westwood is an interesting study. I like him as #1, despite the fact that he isn’t winning the big tournaments. Announcers and pundits put so much stock in wins, it’s easy to forget just how well Westwood has played over the past year +. This past weekend is case in point. I watched a good deal of the tournament, and most of the final round. It was an epic battle between Westwood and Molinari. Francesco was playing out of his mind well, and even still he could barely hold Lee off. And that has seemed the case with Westwood. Somebody who is hot that week (Tiger/Rocco at Torrey, Phil at Augusta, etc.) edges him, and get the glory. But would anybody look at this past year and say Phil played better than Lee?
What set Tiger apart is his ability to contend and win when he’s not on his game. Phil can win when he’s dialed in, but when he isn’t, forget about it. Martin Kaymer is a great player, and will have a chance to overtake Westwood. For now, I think Lee Westwood deserves his ranking, and I hope he can make a show of keeping it!
Its a possibility that with the title brings the confidence. Lee’s has deserved his number one spot, and has every chance to win numerous majors. Phil took ages to get going. I think Tiger will play a part but will never be the dominating force he once was, though spells of brilliance will amaze us all again. kaymer is the one to look out for. He seems to mosey along and I dont believe has got anywhere near his full potential. Lee will be there for a short time but ultimately Kaymer will be the new star of golf
Lee Westwood is going to be Number 1 for a while to come. He may be usurped by someone eventually, but its more than certain that that someone won’t be Tiger Woods. He’s not quite reached rock bottom in his world of continued denial.
No s***. Half way through I had to take a break. Too much Kook Aid gives me a headache.
The European Tour ist very strong, if not stronger than the US Tour at the moment. And Westwood hasn’t reached the #1 spot by accident – he reached it on merit, on consistent play. Tiger neds to prove, and quickly so, that he still has what it takes. Yes, his Ryder Cup match against Molinari was a promising start, but since then he has failed to follow through. In truly believe he’s done for and his reign is over for good. He still may winn the odd Major and maybe even draw par with Jack’s record, but it won’t be easy. He has to face so many fantastic players from all around the globe, who are not as easily intimidated by his presence as the guys he beat over the last ten years. McIlroy, Kaymer, Westwood will be here to stay and Tiger will have to work hard to keep up.
What a lot of contradictory and biased claptrap ………………
“This poor play by Mickelson and Stricker throughout the year does not bode well for Westwood” – I do not follow this. Surely poor play bodes very well for Westwood ?!
“Westwood has “backed” into to the top spot thanks to the poor play of his competitors” – “If only because he has so many players to fend off, Lee Westwood will have a tough time keeping his fellow competitors down” – please explain this one to me. Surely you cannot “back” into the top spot whilst at the same time having so may top players to fend off ??!
“Tiger’s top ranking has again been stolen” – did not realise that the top spot “belonged” to Woods !
“If Tiger gets hot and starts knocking off wins, Lee Westwood might once again be in Tiger’s rearview mirror” – if Woods plays better than he has been for the past year he might become No.1 again. My goodness, well spotted ! If Woods plays like he has for the past year he may drop further down the rankings – you heard it here 1st !!
I don’t think I have read anything so Woods biased for quite some time and there are plenty Woods-centric articles out there….
I think Westwood should be given his due. He has played consistently over the past 2 years and more so than any other player. Given the way the No.1 slot is determined, he is a valid and worthy No.1.
Do try to get over the fact that the World No.1 at the moment is not a US Tour player !
Everytime that Phil or Stricker had a chance to capture the top spot with a win (or even atop 10 in some cases) they did not. And, like I said at the end, Westwood did not exactly go out and capture it.
If you go by the football analogy, Westwood “backed” into the top spot because he hasn’t won much. Tiger didn’t win either. But Stricker did, Phil did (a major), Kaymer did, Furyk did.
The point is, Tiger (and Phil, and Kaymer) has shown that he can get hot and rattle off wins. Westwood never has. Thus, if Tiger gets hot and starts stringing wins together, history shows us that Westwood has no answer.
I needed a giggle at the end of the day and this article has supplied it nicely. Thanks.
Sorry Jamieson – still don’t fully follow your line of reasoning !
If Stricker and Mickelson are incapable of playing well enough to take the No. 1 spot this year, I find it diffcult to use that as a good reason to think they will do so next year necessarily. You appear to be arguing that their inability to take the top spot cannot continue. In other words, you feel they bottled it this year and, as a result, we could not expect them to do so again next year. Not sure of the logic in that …..
If the criteria for taking the No.1 slot was number of wins in the past year or two years then I am sure there would be another person at the top of the rankings – but that is not the criteria ! Presumably Stricker, Mickelson, Kaymer [who, by the way, also won a Major – not just Phil !] and Furyk were less consistent in their performances over the relevant period. In other words, they may have had some victories but their other performances must, by definition, have been poorer than Westwood’s. Should they not be “marked down” for the poorer displays, or do these performances not matter ? Is it only wins which count ?
I think the reality is that [as has been demonstrated for years now] if Woods gets hot there is not a player on the planet that can live with him. It is unlikely it will only be Westwood that won’t have any answers but most probably Stricker, Mickelson, Kaymer, Furyk etc etc etc. The important word is “if” ! On present form that looks less likely than Westwood remaining in the upper echelons of the world rankings.
As I stated in my previous post, I think Westwood is due some credit for his performances over the past couple of years, and more than he was granted in your article.
@ Wayne, November 8, 2010 at 3:13am
You’re an idiot
@ James… You’re probably right and I thank you for bringing that to my attention. However, after spending 2 days at the Aussie Open in Melbourne, I stand by my comments.
I rest my case!
Hi, there. I think that the article is totally biased towards Tiger. Of course, we all know that Lee Westwood is yet to win majors, but there is still time for that and I believe it is too early to comment that Lee won’t remain at the top spot for long. According to my opinion, Tiger still has the fire but he needs to work very hard to acquire the place he recently lost. I believe that Martin Kaymer is the player to look out for and Lee Westwood will have to face some stiff competitions in the form of Martin Kaymer, Jim Furyk and yes, Tiger Woods.
It IS obvious the majority of you absolutely NO clue about greatness. Lee Westwood is #1 in the world because of Tiger’s indiscretions. Lee, Phil and Martin would all be 6 to 7 points behind if it wasn’t for Tiger’s stupidity. Just a normal 5-6 win year and there is no contention for the top spot. Put your bigotry to the side and think logically for one moment, please. There is no one in the world that has the talent of Tiger Woods. No, I haven’t sniffed the Kool Aid, I just have a tendency of thinking (and speaking) realistically. Everyone in the top 10 is only closer because of Tiger’s fall, and NOT anything else. Of course, continue to believe otherwise, it shows just how clueless you guys are.
Boy, am I glad Douglas set us all straight. He single handedly pulled us back from the brink and made us realise that we actually know nothing about golf and nor should we have an opinion. I for one, are grateful that he has demonstrated that his opinion is far more valid and important than my “clueless, bigoted and “unrealistic” opinion.