Woods Might Still Be No. 1 When He Returns to Golf

Tiger Woods is going to be out for a while. He won't play again in 2008. He hopes to return early in 2009. How early? Tiger would probably love to be back for the Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines, which will probably be the last week of January. If that's too soon, then a return at The Masters would make for a great story.

We ran a poll a while back asking the question: Who will lose their No. 1 world ranking first, Tiger Woods or Lorena Ochoa? My guess was Tiger Woods.

So with Woods out until, at the earliest, early 2009, he's going to be the one to lose that No. 1 ranking first, right? Not so fast. In the Golf Digest blog, John Antonini runs the numbers and determines that at the end of 2008 Woods will have a world ranking points average of 11.73 (he's currently at 21.14).

Phil Mickelson is currently second in the world with an average of 10.214 points. If Mickelson does not play again in 2008 he will have an average of 6.627. Of course, Mickelson will play again. Probably 10 more times. In order to pass Woods with an average of 11.74 points, Mickelson would have to earn 575 ranking points in those 10 events. That's not an easy task. In fact, it's a Woodsian task. In his last 10 events, seven of them victories, Woods earned 586 points. And that does not include the incremental loss on the sliding scale.

So it's almost a certainty that Woods will be No. 1 at the end of 2008. Whether he loses that ranking in 2009 depends on how quickly he makes it back, and how well Mickelson is playing (nobody else is even a consideration). But it looks like there's a good chance Tiger will remain No. 1 throughout the full extent of his absence.