Monday, October 31, 2005

Tier II Growth

Vijay lost some points for 4 wins this week, and obviously gained none missing his second cut in a row, allowing Tiger's lead in the OWGR to increase. As the gap between Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh continues to grow so does the size of Tier II.

Davis Love III played well enough last week to sneak in the door opened to Tier II along with the 7 other players (K. Perry, Cabrera, Toms, Donald, Harrington, Montgomerie, and M. Campbell) benefitting from the opening.

Paul McGinley's win at Valderrama this week allowed him to go straight to Tier III as he shows back up on the list this week. David Howell and Darren Clarke join McGinley in Tier III for the week. Rounding out the list, Tim Clark moves up to Tier IV and Fred Couples, Thomas Bjorn, and Stewart Cink show back up in Tier V.

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Auto Sponsorship Week

Well, we've got the Chrysler Championship on the PGA Tour this week featuring Vijay Singh, Retief Goosen, Adam Scott, David Toms, Davis Love III, and Tim Clark. On the other side of the Atlantic, Spain is hosting the European season ending Volvo Masters featuring Sergio Garcia, Angel Cabrera, Padraig Harrington, Luke Donald, Michael Campbell, Colin Montgomerie, David Howell, and Darren Clarke.

With Tiger not playing this week, Vijay has the chance to narrow the gap between the two if he can manage to wake up from the nap he seems to be taking. Should the champion Vijay show up this week. Should that happen it may be possible for Dimarco, Scott, and even Furyk to slide back into Tier III. On the flip side, if Vijay's performance continues to lag Toms and/or Cabrera could play themselves into Tier II. Love could potentially play well enough to move up to Tier IV.

Golfer to watch this week: Let's take a ride on the David Toms roller coaster.

Monday, October 24, 2005

Not much sense

This is one of those weeks where the Official World Golf Rankings doesn't make much sense. Of the top 20 players in the world only a few played last week and of those only Sergio Garcia and Tim Clark played well. Yet, neither Garcia's nor Clark's performances had any effect on the tiers. Garcia is already comfortably a Tier II golfer. Adam Scott and Chris DiMarco sneaked into Tier II without playing last weekend. This enabled Kenny Perry and Angel Cabrera to get back into Tier III and Padraig Harrington, Luke Donald, Colin Montgomerie, and Michael Campbell to move up to Tier IV without any of them playing either. Clark's top 10 performance merely maintained his position at 19 in the OWGR as he joins Davis Love III, David Howell, and Darren Clarke as they return to my list in Tier V.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Disney Fun

Only four of the top 16 players are entered in the Funai Classic at Disney this week -- Woods, Singh, Goosen, and DiMarco. With Furyk not playing this week, if Vijay outperforms Tiger and narrows their gap again, we could see another big Tier III again next week with Furyk falling back to that tier. To complicate matters, Sergio Garcia is the defending champ in the Mallorca Classic in Spain this week providing plenty of opportunity to widen the gap between himself and Furyk.

Not very original, but golfer to watch this week: Vijay Singh.

Monday, October 17, 2005

Back to normal

The gap I expected to see between Tiger and Vijay last week showed up this week instead, and it wasn't Adam Scott who benefited but Jim Furyk after his typically strong showing in Vegas. With Furyk's move into Tier II, the top five tiers leveled back out into smaller groups like they had been prior to last week. With the exception of Colin Montgomerie, all the new adds from last week were knocked out of my tier list. Kenny Perry and Angel Cabrera are now in Tier IV and Luke Donald, Padraig Harrington, Michael Campbell, and Colin Montgomerie are back in Tier V.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

On to Vegas

Seven Top Tier members are entered in the Michelin Championship at Las Vegas. A good week for Phil Mickelson won't affect his tier rank, but it would be his best finish this fall. I don't believe good or bad play will affect whether Jim Furyk, Padraig Harrington, Davis Love III, Fred Couples, and John Daly stay in Tier III. Justin Leonard may need to have a good week to stay in that tier. If Scott Verplank performs well this week, there is a chance that he could move into Tier III. That gives McGinley and Jimenez the chance to move to Tier IV without playing and subsequently opens the door to the likes of Henrik Stenson, Mark Hensby, and Stuart Appleby as potential Tier V members. Hensby and Appleby have the chance to play into the top tiers this week as well.

Golfer to watch this week: Scott Verplank

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Large growth in Tier III

My first guess as to how the tiers might change with Tiger's win was a bit off. I thought the widened gap between Tiger and Vijay might open the door for Adam Scott to sneak into Tier II. That was before it registered in my mind that Adam Scott shot a 74 on Sunday. The end result was that the gap between Sergio Garcia and Adam Scott was widened enough for 14 players (Toms, Harrington, Montgomerie, M. Campbell, Donald, Love, Clarke, Clark, D. Howell, Couples, Bjorn, Daly, Cink, and Leonard) to join Scott and the others already in Tier III. This also enabled Scott Verplank to come into the Tiers at level IV and Paul McGinley and Miguel Jimenez at level V.

With one final glance over the top finishers at the American Express Championship, it seems that only two golfers, David Toms and Colin Montgomerie, earned their movement up the tiers without the aid of Garcia's improvement over Scott. If Garcia continues to improve his putting, who knows what's next.

Monday, October 03, 2005

Tiers 10/3/05

Tier I
Tiger Woods

Tier II
Vijay Singh
Phil Mickelson
Ernie Els
Retief Goosen
Sergio Garcia

Tier III
Adam Scott
Chris DiMarco
Angel Cabrera
Kenny Perry
Jim Furyk

Tier IV
David Toms
Padraig Harrington

Tier V
Michael Campbell
Luke Donald

When I introduced my tier system, I don't think I mentioned I'm just doing this on an experimental level to see where it goes. Perry proved the flexibility of the tiers by moving up a tier without playing. Harrington's move up a tier was less surprising since he placed 3rd in Scotland last week. Colin Montgomerie's move to 16th in world rankings wasn't quite enough to meet the requirements for my list.