Zander Lombard is within striking distance of his career-high position on the Official World Golf Ranking after he jumped 93 places in the latest list released on Monday by the body after completion of the last weekend’s tournaments.
Lombard was ranked 176th in the world after his fine second-place finish in the DP World Tour’s acciona Open de Espana at Club de Campo Villa de Madrid in Spain. That’s just one place lower than his 175th place he reached earlier this year after the DS Automobiles Italian Open back in May. Since then, it was a steady decline to his lowest position last week of 269th since his 333rd after the Hero Dubai Desert Classic in January.
He was South Africa’s 11th-ranked player according to the list last week, and he has leapfrogged Jaco Ahlers, Oliver Bekker, Ockie Strydom, MJ Daffue, Erik van Rooyen and Hennie du Plessis to move into fifth on the top South African list.
Van Rooyen consolidated his climb back into the world’s top 200 with a share of 23rd in the PGA Tour’s Shriners Children’s Open. That saw him up seven places to 191st.
Also up this week, by a solid 25 places, was Wilco Nienaber. His share of 17th behind Lombard in Spain took him to 395th – a long way from the heady 131st he reached when he won the Dimension Data Pro-Am back in 2021.
South Africa’s top golfer remains Thriston Lawrence. The South African Open champion is down two places to 95th this week.
South Africa’s top 20:
- Thriston Lawrence 95 (down 2)
- Christiaan Bezuidenhout 107 (down 2)
- Dean Burmester 130 (down 4)
- Garrick Higgo 163 (unchanged)
- Zander Lombard 176 (up 93)
- Erik van Rooyen 191 (up 7)
- Hennie du Plessis 202 (down 12)
- MJ Daffue 210 (down 8)
- Ockie Strydom 229 (down 5)
- Oliver Bekker 234 (down 14)
- Jaco Ahlers 274 (down 9)
- Casey Jarvis 305 (down 14)
- Louis de Jager 319 (down 1)
- Deon Germishuys 320 (down 5)
- George Coetzee 329 (down 3)
- JC Ritchie 343 (down 7)
- Dylan Frittelli 361 (down 8)
- Jbe Kruger 392 (down 6)
- Wilco Nienaber 395 (up 25)
- Louis Oosthuizen 401 (down 16)
