SI World Golf Rankings: Sam Burns Cracks World Top 10 After Winning WGC-Match Play

Burns is a big riser this week after his fifth career PGA Tour win. See who else is on the move in the SIWGR.

Jeff Ritter | Mar 27, 2023

The latest edition of the SI World Golf Rankings is live, and no surprise to see Sam Burns make a leap after beating an elite field at the WGC-Match Play, capped by a championship-match win over Cam Young. Burns is up 17 spots this week to No. 8 in the SIWGR.

The SIWGR uses the most recent 12 months of results in its proprietary, data-driven calculations, so our list is naturally more volatile than that of the Official World Golf Rankings, which uses 24 months of data. Burns is currently 10th on the OWGR.

Here are a few other risers and fallers in our latest list.

3 Risers in the SI World Golf Rankings

Sam Burns

This week: 8

Last week: 25

Skinny: Beat Cameron Young in the championship match at the WGC-Match Play for his fifth career PGA Tour title.

Cameron Young

This week: 9

Last week: 14

Skinny: Advanced to the championship match before falling to Burns. Runner-up finish in an elite field still enough to vault into World top 10.

Mackenzie Hughes

This week: 60

Last week: 83

Skinny: Came through a tough group to advance to the knockout stage at the Match Play, then beat Max Homa to reach final eight, where he lost to Burns 3 and 2.

3 Fallers in the SI World Golf Rankings

Corey Conners

This week: 53

Last week: 34

Skinny: Failed to get out of the group stage at the Match Play. Lost last year’s third-place Match Play finish from his calculation, as the SI Rankings only use the most recent 12 months of results.

Adam Scott

This week: 66

Last week: 52

Skinny: Advanced to the Round of 16 at last year’s Match Play. Didn’t get out of the group stage this year, as he was grouped with Burns.

Abraham Ancer

This week: 76

Last week: 63

Skinny: Ancer plays on the LIV Tour, which didn’t have an event last weekend. He also lost his results from the 2022 Match Play, where he reached the final eight, as the SI Rankings only use 12 months of data.

Published Mar 27, 2023

JEFF RITTER

Jeff Ritter is the managing director of SI Golf. He has more than 20 years of sports media experience, and previously was the general manager at the Morning Read, where he led that business's growth and joined SI as part of an acquisition in 2022. Earlier in his career he spent more than a decade at SI and Golf Magazine, and his journalism awards include a MIN Magazine Award and an Edward R. Murrow Award for sports reporting. He received a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan and a master's from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.