Van Rooyen climbs back inside world’s top 200

Oct 10, 2023 | Featured, Rankings

Erik van Rooyen climbed back inside the world’s top 200 after a solid showing in the PGA Tour’s Sanderson Farms Championship according to the latest list of the world’s top players released this week by the Official World Golf Ranking.

His share of 16^th saw him rise three places to 198^th, and swop positions on the list of South Africa’s top 20 players according to the official rankings with MJ Daffue who dropped eight places after missing the cut in the same tournament as Van Rooyen. Daffue slipped out of the top 200 to 202^nd as a result.

Also climbing with his share of 16^th with Van Rooyen was Garrick Higgo, up one place to 163^rd, but the biggest beneficiary from that tournament was Christiaan Bezuidenhout. He was just one shot out of a play-off in the tournament, and his share of sixth saw him get back on an upward trajectory towards the world’s top 100 as he was up six places to 105^th.

Everyone else in South Africa’s top 20 was down somewhat, except Louis Oosthuizen, who got a derisory five-place boost from his share of 44^th in the DP World Tour’s rain-shortened Alfred Dunhill Links Championship. Perhaps Oosthuizen’s fairly accurate comments about the increasingly obvious bias towards the PGA Tour of the rankings had something to do with it – although Deon Germishuys shared 44^th with Oosthuizen in the same tournament but was down 16 places.

Jacques Kruyswijk climbed on place to 394^th, but South Africa’s top-ranked golfer, Thriston Lawrence slipped four places to 93^rd.

South Africa’s top 20: