Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Rory McIlroy poised to remain world No. 1 during competitive hiatus

mcilroy_1920_theplayers20_tue.jpg

As the sport enters an indefinite period of unknown,Rory McIlroy is poised to remain atop the Official World Golf Ranking for the foreseeable future.

McIlroy returned to world No. 1 last month, supplanting Brooks Koepka, and he’s still in the top spot this week as OWGR officials updated the rankings without any new results to add from the canceled Players Championship. The only adjustments to the rankings were minute ones, as player divisor figures were tweaked and previously-accrued points were aged another week based on the math of the two-year rolling window.

Those small adjustments were enough to push Adam Scott from ninth to sixth, while Patrick Cantlay and Patrick Reed are in a statistical tie for seventh. Webb Simpson fell from seventh to ninth.

But there is now a very real scenario where the world rankings could continue without anyone accruing new points for quite some time. At the very least, men’s professional golf is on hiatus through the middle of April – at which point McIlroy will still hold the top spot.


Updated Official World Golf Ranking


McIlroy currently enjoys a nearly one-point lead over Jon Rahm, 9.45 to 8.48. According to Golf Channel’s rankings guru Alan Robison, that gap would narrow in the April 13 rankings (the day after the scheduled final round of the Masters), assuming no golf is played in the interim:

1. Rory McIlroy (9.22 point average)

2. Jon Rahm (8.50)

3. Justin Thomas (7.23)

4. Brooks Koepka (7.01)

5. Dustin Johnson (6.18)

6. Patrick Cantlay (5.86)

7. Webb Simpson (5.83)

8. Adam Scott (5.78)

9. Patrick Reed (5.61)

10. Xander Schauffele (5.26)

Current world No. 10, Tommy Fleetwood, is expected to fall to 11th, while Tiger Woods would drop from 11th to 12th.

But those changes assume the mathematical wheels of the OWGR will continue to turn in these unprecedented times. Officials are discussing the possibility of freezing the rankings with the sport on indefinite hiatus, which would mean older points would not lose value on a weekly basis and the rankings would more closely resemble the current standings once golf returns to action.