Golf fans react to Adrian Meronk's SHOCKING rise in OWGR after Australian Open

Another week, another Official World Golf Ranking shocker!

05 Dec 2022

Golf fans react to Adrian Meronk's SHOCKING rise in OWGR after Australian Open — Golf fans react to Adrian Meronk's SHOCKING rise in OWGR after Australian…

Golf fans are once again up in arms about the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) on Monday morning after seeing Australian Open winner Adrian Meronk climb a grand total of FOUR rungs on the ladder.

Meronk, 29, started the final round one shot behind home favourite Adam Scott but eventually raced his way to an emphatic five-shot victory in Melbourne to clinch his second victory on the DP World Tour.

The giant Pole, who won his maiden title at the Irish Open earlier this year, has now bumped himself up from 56th to 52nd following his latest win.

Meronk only moves up 4 spots to 52nd for his Australian Open win. https://t.co/BqR5W7Yepw
— Brian Keogh (@IrishGolfDesk) December 5, 2022

While Meronk will no doubt be delighted to add another trophy to his cabinet, and continue his excellent rise in the game, he will be slightly miffed that his Australian Open victory has not yet edged him into the World's Top 50.

That is because players inside the top 50 at the end of 2022 receive an invite to compete in The Masters in April 2023.

Meronk, who started the year ranked 172nd, has never played at Augusta National, either.

On Sunday afternoon after etching his name on the famous Australian Open trophy, Meronk thought he had done enough to achieve his dream.

"[The Masters] was definitely on my mind coming to these two weeks to Australia to improve my ranking and I think that should be enough going forward," said Meronk.

"I’ll just wait until [Monday] when the ranking comes out, but I think it gives me a good chance to be inside that inside that top 50. To play the Masters will be an unreal feeling."

Sorry Adrian, you are not yet in the Top 50.

But as Nosferatu, the OWGR genius on social media highlights in his tweet below, Meronk remains on track to break the Top 50 by the end of the year.

The crazy part is Meronk is not even playing in any more events this month.

Meronk does at least progress to 13th in European Points List for the Ryder Cup, and to 19th in the World Points List, further enhancing his chances of a debut Ryder Cup appearance in Rome next September.

Calm down! Get a glass of water...
This is the ranking after this week(#52). The one I was talking about earlier was the projection at the end of the year (#48). #OWGR https://t.co/lWujgtbeco
— Nosferatu (@VC606) December 4, 2022

South Africa's Thriston Lawrence, on the other hand, vaulted from 90th to 64th following his latest victory on the DP World Tour at the South African Open.

It marks the third week in a row on Tour where players - and golf fans - have raised eyebrows at the ranking system at large.

Jon Rahm won his third DP World Tour Championship in Dubai last month, meaning he had gone 2-1-4-1 in his last four starts around the world.

Despite that, he remained fifth in the world.

Rahm called it "a joke".

The Spaniard remains fifth in the world in the latest update despite a tie for eighth at Tiger Woods' tournament in the Bahamas.

Earlier that week, Rory McIlroy said he felt the most recent changes to the OWGR made it the "fairest system" given the current state of affairs.

Woods also ripped into the OWGR last week:

"It's a flawed system. That's something we all here recognize. The field at Dubai got less points than Sea Island and more of the top players were there in Dubai, so obviously there's a flawed system. How do you fix it? You know, those are meetings we're going to have to have. We're going to have to have it with World Golf committee and as well as our -- the main tours that are involved in it, Somehow come up with a better system than is in place now. I remember in my career, when I -- I had a big lead in my career, I didn't have to play a single tournament the next year and I still would be ranked No. 1. We changed that system then. So it has been changed in the past and I'm sure this will be changed hopefully soon."

Then last week, Cameron Smith also won his third Australian PGA title, and then realised he had not progressed on his third place in the OWGR.

"It's a bit of a pain in the bum," said Smith, citing his frustration in the politest possible way.

Now we have a case of Meronk winning Australia's national Open, a tournament that featured a number of the world's best players such as Smith and Scott, and he moved just four rungs on the ladder.

Surely something needs to be done now?

"It's a disgrace," tweeted one irate golf fan. "It's Aussie's national open, he's taken down some of the best players in the world, and only moves up four places in the world. I get they've made changes to the OWGR but it's an absolute joke how they work out points."

"I don't get the OWGR," said another fan.

"WTF, four places LOL," joked one fan.

One golfer said: "The OWGR heavily favours the PGA Tour it's quite incredible. They need to change it quickly otherwise it's going to get out of hand, especially with many of the world's best on LIV."

"They're having a laugh now," wrote another.

LIV Golf tournaments currently still remain shut out of receiving any world ranking points, despite CEO Greg Norman's urgings for change to finally happen.

Will LIV Golf receive points in 2023? It would seem like OWGR have gone quiet on the matter for now.

On that note, LIV Golf's Smith, despite his missed cut after spending Friday afternoon in the bar, remains in third place.

LIV's Dustin Johnson now shuffles another two spots back to an unthinkable 40th in the OWGR, with LIV's Brooks Koepka down in 48th.

Koepka, according to Nosferatu, will definitely finish the year outside the Top 50 in the world for the first time in eight years.

McIlroy will end the year as World No.1 no matter what happens the rest of this month.

NEWSFLASH
One collateral damage coming from Adrian Meronk's win at the #AustralianOpen is the fact that Brooks Koepka is now guaranteed to finish the year outside Top 50 in the world for the first time in eight years, since he first moved in (Nov 2014)... #OWGR
— Nosferatu (@VC606) December 4, 2022

#OWGR No.1 watch:@McIlroyRory will remain No.1 in the world until Kapalua, at least...
— Nosferatu (@VC606) December 4, 2022

World No.2 Scottie Scheffler had a chance to catch him at the Hero World Challenge last night, but he came up shy in second place behind Viktor Hovland, who bumps himself up into the World's Top 10 to ninth.

Click here to see the full rankings