Phil Mickelson climbed 10 spots on the leaderboard with a final-round 68 at the WGC–HSBC Champions. It wasn’t enough, though, to keep from falling below a certain level in the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time in more than a quarter century.
Mickelson’s remarkable run of being in the OWGR’s top 50 is projected to come to an end when the weekly ranking comes out tonight. The five-time Major champ first entered the top 50 on November 23, 1993, after a runner-up finish at the Casio World Open in Japan.
Ironically, his amazing streak was snapped by a runner-up finish in Japan as well. Shugo Imahira’s solo second at the Mynavi ABC Championship on the Japan Golf Tour will move the 27-year-old to 50th, bumping the 49-year-old Hall-of-Famer.
Twitter’s Official World Golf Ranking guru @Nosferatu first pointed out the situation on Sunday:
🚨BREAKING
Shugo Imahira finishes runner up in Japan which is enough to move him past Phil in the world rankings.
It's an end of an era!@PhilMickelson's uninterrupted 1353 weeks (since 28 Nov 1993) inside the top 50 in #OWGR comes to an end!
What a REMARKABLE achievement ‼️
— Nosferatu (@VC606) November 3, 2019
And projected what the new OWGR will look like with Rory McIlroy closing the gap on world No.1 Brooks Koepka thanks to his latest WGC win:
#OWGR update after week #44 (~top 45):
1BK 11.4673
2Rory 🏆 10.3837
3DJ
4JT
5Rahm
6Cantlay
7🐯
8🌹
9Xander
10Bryson
11Webb
12Frankie
13Casey
14Finau
15Reed
16Woodland
17Scott
18Tommy
19Lowry
20Hideki
23Louis
25MattFitz
35Ancer
42Spieth
———–
50Imahira
51🕺— Nosferatu (@VC606) November 3, 2019
Mickelson jumped to 17th in February with a win at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-am, the 44th of his PGA Tour career. But he’s recorded just one top top-25 finish since – a T-18 at the Masters – while missing the cut eight times.
“It was a good run,” Mickelson told the Associated Press after yesterday’s round in Shanghai. “But I’ll be back.”
