Rory McIlroy is about to replace Brooks Koepka as world number one, despite the fact that neither he nor Koepka would take part, in any event, this week.

However, McIlroy would be favored by the system used to rate golfers which takes into view a player’s performance in two years. By the calculation, Koepka would lose more points, due to the fact that he has been inactive for a long time due to injury spells in both 2018 and, especially, 2019, as confirmed by a spokesman for the OWGR.

Even though he performed well at the Saudi International, finishing at 17th place, his points were not enough as he scored only 3.72, when he needed something higher than 5.05 if he needed to remain world number one for longer. Presently, he has spent 37 weeks on the top of the board after winning the PGA Championship back in May 2019.

McIlroy, on the other hand, had a very wonderful 2019, winning the FedEx Cup, and other top victories. But the highlight was when he was crowned as PGA Tour Player of the year, over Koepka. The win seemed controversial in a way because Koepka had already won the PGA America Player of the Year Award, and, as a kind of practice, whoever won that award was automatically the winner of the PGA Tour Player of the Year title, till McIlroy happened. Although no one could say, he was not deserving of the title, as even the commissioner of the PGA tour made mention of his wins last season.

However, McIlroy is no stranger to being number one as he has held that spot for a total of 95 weeks, at different points in time, before being displaced in September 2015 by Jason Day. Even though it would take him nearly 5 years to get to that spot again, he is poised to beat Sir Nick Faldo, who spent 97 weeks on the number one spot, to become the third player with the longest stay on number one, after Tiger Woods, at 683 weeks, and Greg Norman, at 331 weeks.

Written by: Leon Osamor