Freefall: Oosthuizen tumbles down world rankings list

Jun 12, 2023 | Featured, Rankings

He’s been ranked as high as fourth in the world on the Official World Golf Ranking, but Louis Oosthuizen slithered all the way down to 285^th this week ahead of yet another major championship he’ll miss.

He was already slipping in the rankings ahead of the US Open last year, and after he missed that cut, he went down one place to 23^rd. This week, he went down 32 places to 285^th, and the precipitous fall is, of course, due to his jumping ship to LIV Golf, where there are no ranking points up for grabs – yet.

While there is much premature celebration surrounding the announcement last week of what on the face of it appears to be the beginning of the end of hostilities between the golf establishment and LIV Golf, the reality is that LIV players will continue to drop down the rankings list for the foreseeable future. In Oosthuizen’s case, while he may well in any case be in the twilight of his competitive career, the fact is the damage to his position in world golf in rankings terms is starting to reach irreversible proportions. If he slips much further, coming back with a few desultory appearances in points-bearing events will not be enough.

In other rankings movements for the week, the best-performing amongst the top 20 South Africans on the official list was by Louis de Jager, who had a solid week on the DP World Tour to climb nine sports to 264^th. That’s a way off his best-ever ranking of 190^th, but it’s a move in the right direction. That makes him South Africa’s 14^th-best player according to the rankings.

The top South African remains Christiaan Bezuidenhout, unchanged in 78^th place.

South Africa’s top 20: