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Using the Official World Golf Ranking, it’s easy to quantify which players had good years and which players had, well, not-so-good years.
Jordan Spieth was among the former group in 2021, snapping a lengthy victory drought and returning to the upper echelon of the men’s game. On the other end, players such as Webb Simpson and Matt Kuchar dropped significantly. Tiger Woods also experienced a sharp world-rankings fall, though his decline was due to a serious car accident in February that required extensive surgery to his right leg and kept him from logging an official world-ranked tournament round all year.
Here is a closer look at some notable names who either rose or fell in the OWGR this year, plus breakdown of every players’ movement in the world rankings from the end of 2020 to now:
RISING…
Jordan Spieth
+68 | No. 82 to No. 14 (82.93%)
After ascending to No. 1 in the world and winning three major championships before his 24th birthday, Spieth struggled mightily the past few years, especially in 2020 when he posted just two top-10s. He dropped to No. 92 in the world rankings earlier this year, and despite strong weeks in Phoenix, Pebble Beach and Los Angeles, he failed to qualify for his first WGC since he first became eligible for the limited-field championships.
“For me, it really stung when I missed the World Golf Championship,” Spieth recalled. “There was a tournament being played that week, that I was healthy and could play in, and just didn’t have a spot in the tournament; that kind of hit me.”
But Spieth kept building momentum and returned to the winner’s circle for the first time since capturing the 2017 Open Championship by winning the Valero Texas Open the week prior to the Masters. He then tied for third at Augusta National and added two more runner-up finishes this year to qualify for a fourth straight U.S. Ryder Cup team. He still didn’t drive it well, ranking No. 135 in strokes gained: off-the-tee, but he returned to the top 50 in both…
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Source : yahoo
