New
Number
One
Lee Westwood
Titleist’s Adjustable Drivers ( 5)
A Fix For The Rankings ( 6)
Graeme McDowell Wins Again ( 10)
That Time Of Year
Lee Westwood took the news sitting down.
After 281 straight weeks of Tiger Woods
ruling the Official World Golf Ranking, England’s Westwood woke up Monday morning
and found his name at the top of the list.
And he didn’t have to lift a finger to get there.
At least not last week, because Westwood
didn’t play.
No, the timing of this sea change was all
about number crunchers and divisors, and
supercomputers and rolling results and ... well
... just read Mike Purkey’s column inside.
Meanwhile, the LPGA picked up a title
sponsor (Wegman’s) while the PGA Tour lost
one (Turning Stone). Retiree Lorena Ochoa
carted off $1.28 million very unofficial American dollars for winning a celebrity pro-am
event in China where the men and the women
fought for the same purse ... and where Ryuji
Imada was penalized a world-record 26 shots
for unwittingly breaking local lift, clean and
place regulations.
“I am an idiot,” Imada said, paraphrasing Phil Mickelson’s famous last words from
Winged Foot in 2006. Such an idiot.
Speaking of world records, Michael Phelps
was in the amateur field in China but there
was no immediate word on whether he got
along swimmingly with his partners.
And Graeme McDowell won again, this time
in Spain.
Woods returns to action in Shanghai this
week. Westwood will be there. So will Mickelson. And McDowell. And Martin Kaymer,
who could’ve hijacked what might turn out to
be Westwood’s 15 minutes of world-ranking
fame if he had beaten McDowell. He didn’t
come close.
There will not be a quiz on any of this.
