Friday, May 6, 2005
The Slant Pattern World Golf Top 10
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The old saw says second place is the first loser, but in golf, it's actually the last loser. Are there any losers in professional golf, anyway? Since it's a game where you play your own ball and you opponents never have any direct impact on your result (except perhaps psychologically), the only way to measure whether you're a winner or a loser is not against the field, but against par.
I bring all of this up because I've been noticing another slew of articles complaining about the format of the Official World Golf Ranking, noting that Chris DiMarco is seventh on it even though he hasn't won an event in two years.
The reason he's so high is because he has finished second three times this year, including two events, the Masters and the World Match Play Championship, that included pretty much all of the world's top 50. Let's look at his runner-up finish in the match play, as that's the golf format that comes closest to determining winners and losers against each other. It's ironic that he beat five guys, one by one, to get to the finals. None of the others world's greatest did that except his finals opponent, David Toms. Yet he didn't beat Toms, so he doesn't deserve to be so high.
Then he loses the Masters in a playoff to Tiger Woods. He lipped out a pitch shot on 18 in regulation that would've won it. If that's a centimeter more centered, it goes in and DiMarco wins the Masters. It didn't, so that centimeter means he's undeserving of his No. 7 rank in the world? Give me a break.
Slant Pattern World Golf Top 10
This is something I've done a couple times before. I use no formulas or statistics, it's nothing more than a basic reading of who I think the ten best golfers in the world are, one though ten.
1. Tiger Woods
Remember how we were all babbling about how he hasn't won a major in forever and hasn't won a stroke play event in forever and ... seems like a hundred years ago instead of just last year.
2. Phil Mickelson
Last year, I was down on Phil since he seemed to only kick it up for majors and sort of went on cruise control after winning the Masters. I hereby rescind that accusation. His run of wins the first two months of the year was more than impressive, it was dominant. Good to see he's playing every tournament like a major now.
3. Vijay Singh
I've mellowed on Vijay after declaring him Public Enemy Number One last year, and even making fun of his mole. That won't get me the Pulitzer. He's every bit as good as last year, but Phil and Tiger have caught him.
4. Ernie Els
Has been quiet on this side of the Atlantic this year, but already has three wins on the European Tour in 2005, including a 13-stroke victory at the BMW Asian Open last week. Says he's turned the corner on his website.
5. Retief Goosen
People talk about the "Big 4" above, but the "Big 5" seems more appropriate to me. Multiple majors, multiple wins on multiple tours every year, what more do you want?
6. Adam Scott
Like Ernie, he's recently victorious, taking home the Johnny Walker Classic hardware that I trumpeted in the last edition of Slant Pattern. He's young, he wins big events with big fields, he's hot ... and I will be surprised if he isn't number one on everyone's list at some point in the next 10 years.
7. Chris DiMarco
See above. I will say this: the way he three-putted from the pinside fringe for a bogey six to finish one shot out of a playoff last week in New Orleans was indeed quite a choke job.
8. David Toms
The list starts getting thin here, but Toms might have the best approach game on the PGA tour.
9. Padraig Harrington
Another guy who feels DiMarco's pain, with a list of runner-up finishes as long as his arm. Already a legend in Europe, he just won his first PGA tour event in March.
10. Darren Clarke
A rare European who seems to play better in America than in Europe.