Bubba Watson and Kevin Kisner both made climbs in the latest edition of the Official World Golf Ranking after reaching the final match at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play.
Watson rolled Kisner, 7 and 6, in the final match at Austin Country Club for his second win in the last five weeks. As a result, he jumped from 39th to 21st in the rankings, while a seventh career runner-up finish for Kisner helped him climb 11 spots to No. 25.
Justin Thomas finished fourth, narrowly missing out on a chance to replace Dustin Johnson atop the rankings, but he has closed the gap to mere decimal points after another strong week. Johnson remains No. 1 with a 9.8833 point average, while Thomas now boasts a 9.4946 average.
Alex Noren, who defeated Thomas in the third-place match, moved from 17th to 14th. The most bittersweet ascent belonged to Ian Poulter, who jumped 13 spots after making it to the quarterfinals in Austin. But that still left him at No. 51, 0.0301 points behind Si Woo Kim, with only the top 50 in this week’s rankings qualifying for the Masters.
Brice Garnett, who earned his first career PGA Tour win in the Dominican Republic last week, moved up 89 spots to a career-best No. 125 in the world.
The only change among the top 10 came at No. 9, where Sergio Garcia jumped one spot past an injured Brooks Koepka. Johnson and Thomas remain locked in the top two spots, followed by Jon Rahm, Jordan Spieth and Justin Rose. Hideki Matsuyama stayed at No. 6, with Rory McIlroy, Rickie Fowler, Garcia and Koepka rounding out the top 10.
Two weeks removed from a T-5 finish at Bay Hill, Tiger Woods moved up one spot to No. 104 despite not playing last week.
Source: Internet
