The Ranking: Tiger, a Pole Winner, the Shark-less Shootout and an Honest DQ

Gary Van Sickle, who's old enough to remember the JC Penney Classic, recaps a week in golf which didn't include Tiger playing but did have him talking—but not about everything.

It was the best of golf times. It was the worst of golf times.

Tiger Woods showed up at a golf tournament. Good times. But Tiger Woods didn’t play in the golf tournament. Woods pulled out of the tourney he annually hosts, the Hero World Challenge, due to a bum foot. Bad times.

Still, a little Tiger in December was just what The Ranking needed, especially when Woods said, among other things, that he likes fellow golfer Max Homa’s game. Interesting.

Here’s the rest of last week, in order of importance, according to the golf czars at The Ranking:

10. A Dreaded Dairy Queen

There is no good time to be disqualified—DQ’d or Dairy Queened, in golf jargon. But Alana Uriell’s timing was particularly bad. Uriell, 26, signed for a wrong score in the second round of the eight-round LPGA Q-Series in Mobile, Ala., and was disqualified. She would have been in 18th place, not bad with the top 45 getting LPGA status, but signed for a birdie that should have been a par. When Uriell discovered the scoring error, she reported it to LPGA officials. Integrity and honesty still rock.

9. Beer Today, Gone Tomorrow

A week after winning the Australian PGA Championship, Cameron Smith thought he’d missed the 36-hole cut at the Australian Open so he promptly hit the pub with some friends after his round. Oops.

“Yeah, I was probably a few too many beers deep and then I realized we had an early tee time … and was a good boy the rest of the night,” said Smith, who rallied to shoot 69 the next morning but missed the unusual third-round cut to the low 30 players. Playing LIV Golf, Smith probably forget what it was like to have a cut …

8. The Golf War Continues

Tiger Woods, asked about LIV Golf at the Hero World Challenge, said LIV Golf commissioner Greg Norman “has to go, first of all.” Rory McIlroy, interviewed by Ireland’s Sunday Independent, admitted he was irked when Norman accused him of being brainwashed by the tours. Said Rory: “I thought, I’m going to make it my business now to be as much of a pain in his arse as possible.”

The return volley from Norman courtesy of TodaysGolfer.com: “I pay zero attention to McIlroy and Woods.” Well, that makes one person in the world …

7. The Pole Position

Adrian Meronk solidified his spot as Poland’s greatest golfer. Meronk, the first Pole to win a DP World Tour event, eagled the last hole to win the Australian Open by five shots in Melbourne. Meronk, 29, was born in Germany, raised in Poland and played college golf at East Tennessee State University. Who is Poland’s second greatest golfer? Uh, better check with Alexa or Siri on that …

6. Norwegian Wood

This sounds familiar—Norway’s Viktor Hovland won the 20-man golf outing known as the Hero World Challenge for a second straight year in the Bahamas. Hovland, 25, went wire-to-wire but needed to hole a clutch 25-foot putt on the final green to win after hitting his approach shot into a lake. “It was frickin’ nerve-wracking,” joked Hovland. He was the first player to successfully defend a Hero World Challenge title since 2007 when some other guy did it—Tiger Woods.

5. The Shark-less Shootout

The old Shark Shootout is now known as the QBE Shootout and is moving on without Greg Norman, the tournament’s former host, now radioactive due to his LIV Golf gig. The new Shark-less Shootout in 2023 is going to be a mixed-team event, according to the Associated Press, with an LPGA player paired with a PGA Tour player. There hasn’t been a mixed event on the schedule since the old, really old JC Penney Classic passed away in 1999. It doesn’t have a date or formula for the teams but hey, remember when Mike Donald and Vicki Alvarez won it in ’84? Oh. Never mind.

4. Charlie Company

Tiger Woods was asked what golf advice he’s been giving his 13-year-old son, Charlie, who showed off an impressive game at last year’s father-son tournament. Woods told his son to copy the swing of Rory McIlroy, not Tiger Woods. “Have you ever seen Rory off-balance on a shot? No, not ever,” Woods said. “You can swing as hard as you want but you need to have balance.” The Ranking’s free golf advice: If it doesn’t hurt, you’re not swinging hard enough.

3. The Doctor Is in, Unavailable, Not Talking.

Tiger Woods revealed why you didn’t see him playing golf after July’s British Open. He suffered from plantar fasciitis in his foot and admitted he had a “couple of surgeries.” Asked if he could elaborate, Woods replied, “Nope.” Asked when the surgeries were, he answered, “In the past.” Asked what he meant by “in the past,” Woods said, “This year.” End of story. Same guy named his yacht Privacy. Got it?

2. It’s Still Tiger Time

While Tiger Woods had to withdraw from the Hero World Championship due to plantar fasciitis, he still plans to play The Match this week with Rory Woods, Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas, and the PNC Championship the following week with his son, Charlie, because he can ride in a golf cart at each event.

“The Father-Son will be a very easy week,” Woods said. “Charlie will hit all the shots, I’ll just get the putts out of the hole.”

The competitor in him still aims to compete next year in the major championships and maybe one or two other events. “I can hit whatever shot you want,” Woods said. “I just can’t walk. I don’t have much left in this leg, so (I will try to) gear up for the biggest ones and hopefully, lightning catches in a bottle, and I’m in contention with a chance to win and hopefully, I remember how to do that.” Contend in another major? Believe it or not, Woods is listed at 50-1 odds to win the Masters at SI Sportsbook.

1. The Official World Golf Rankling.

The fact that Scottie Scheffler could have earned enough points by winning the puny Hero World Challenge to retake the world No. 1 ranking from Rory McIlroy reminds The Ranking how lame the OWGR remains despite a recent makeover. While the Hero World Challenge fielded 15 of the world’s top 20-ranked players, its field was limited to 20 players. That’s a small outing or a large picnic, not a legit tournament. Yet it qualifies for world ranking points, an item LIV Golf is sure to point out in its lawsuit against the PGA Tour as it tries to get ranking points for its own 48-man events. Even Tiger Woods called the rankings “flawed” while Jon Rahm said they were “laughable.” The real bottom line: The Ranking wonders why the controversial (and formerly politically influenced) OWGR is used to determine important stuff like berths in major championships. And bar bets.