Jacques P de Villiers jumped an astonishing 259 places on the latest Official World Golf Ranking with his share of third over the weekend in the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open.
He’s not inside South Africa’s top 20 players according to the listing, but his climb from 984th to 725th was a satisfying leap. It was indicative of how important good performances are in those tournaments outside the PGA Tour that have at least a semblance of reward for the field outside the players who have already gained elevated rankings.
While he may have faltered a little down the stretch, De Villiers’ performance was an impressive one, and he will be happy resting up over the festive season ahead of the Sunshine Tour’s resumption on January 25 with the Mediclinic Invitational.
The man with whom De Villiers went head-to-head in the final round in Mauritius, Louis Oosthuizen, got another substantial bump in the world rankings with a 64-place jump to 133rd. It showed again how urgent it is to come to some sort of resolution to the LIV Golf battle with Official World Golf Ranking, in addition to finding a way of equitably judging the DP World Tour – and other tours – in relation to the over-inflated rating of the PGA Tour by the system.
Jayden Schaper and Darren Fichardt also both had nice bumps in rankings, with Schaper up 31 places to 316th and Fichardt up 23 places to 327th.
South Africa’s top 20:
- Dean Burmester 73 (up 2)
- Thriston Lawrence 82 (unchanged)
- Erik van Rooyen 87 (unchanged)
- Christiaan Bezuidenhout 101 (unchanged)
- Louis Oosthuizen 133 (up 64)
- Zander Lombard 143 (down 2)
- Garrick Higgo 175 (down 2)
- Hennie du Plessis 197 (down 1)
- MJ Daffue 253 (down 4)
- Ockie Strydom 259 (down 5)
- Louis de Jager 269 (down 1)
- Jaco Ahlers 287 (down 1)
- Charl Schwartzel 290 (down 1)
- Casey Jarvis 291 (up 4)
- Jacques Kruyswijk 315 (down 1)
- Jayden Schaper 316 (up 31)
- Darren Fichardt 327 (up 23)
- Oliver Bekker 341 (up 2)
- Wilco Nienaber 387 (up 8)
- George Coetzee 391 (down 6)
