Golf:While Rory McIlroy was taking in the sights at Wimbledon on a couple of occasions last week, Martin Kaymer was competing in France and today the German overtook the US Open champion in the latest world rankings.
Kaymer finished fourth at Le Golf National which was good enough for the US PGA champion to move up to third in the standings with McIlroy dropping one place to fourth.
The Holywood star had a busy week off the course and was twice invited to the Royal Box at SW19, including for yesterday’s men’s final where his friend Rafa Nadal lost to Novak Djokovic. McIlroy also made the trip to Hamburg for David Haye’s heavyweight title fight last Saturday night.
The 22-year-old is still the highest ranked Irish player with Graeme McDowell next, though he has slid down to ninth ahead of this week’s Scottish Open at Castle Stuart, the tournament’s new links venue in Inverness. The event was previously held at Loch Lomond.
Although McIlroy is not competing at Castle Stuart, his attentions are firmly back on golf ahead of the British Open. He intends to play at Sandwich this week and is set to get more links practice at Royal County Down.
For some time now the rankings haven’t made great reading for Pádraig Harrington, and this week is no better as the triple major winner finds himself 57th before teeing it up in Scotland.
Yesterday’s French Open winner, Thomas Levet made a massive leap from 252nd up to 137th.
On the PGA Tour American Nick Watney won the AT&T National and climbed five places and into the world’s top 10 (10th) for the first time.
The English pair of Luke Donald and Lee Westwood still lead the
way in first and second respectively as the game’s leading players fine-tune preparations for the third major of the season, which gets under way after this week’s Scottish Open.
Leading world rankings:
1 Luke Donald 9.04, 2 Lee Westwood 8.69, 3 Martin Kaymer 7.25, 4 Rory McIlroy 7.13, 5 Steve Stricker 6.27, 6 Phil Mickelson 5.79, 7 Jason Day 5.51, 8 Matt Kuchar 5.51, 9 Graeme McDowell 5.45, 10 Nick Watney 5.34, 11 Charl Schwartzel 5.31, 12 Dustin Johnson 5.00, 13 Paul Casey 4.82, 14 KJ Choi 4.80, 15 Bubba Watson 4.78, 16 Ian Poulter 4.60, 17 Tiger Woods 4.07, 18 Adam Scott 4.06, 19 Robert Karlsson 4.04, 20 Hunter Mahan 3.98
Other leading Europeans:
22 Francesco Molinari, 25 Martin Laird, 26 Alvaro Quiros, 28 Miguel Angel Jimenez, 29 Matteo Manassero, 31 Justin Rose, 34 Edoardo Molinari, 43 Anders Hansen, 44 Peter Hanson, 53 Sergio Garcia, 56 Ross Fisher, 57 Pádraig Harrington, 62 Fredrik Jacobson, 73 Simon Dyson, 75 Thomas Bjorn, 77 Raphael Jacquelin, 79 Gregory Bourdy, 80 Nicolas Colsaerts, 85 Alexander Noren, 86 David Horsey, 87 Brian Davis, 90 Johan Edfors, 92 Stephen Gallacher, 94 Pablo Larrazabal, 96 Carl Pettersson, 99 Rhys Davies
