TOUR SCENE NEWS ROUND-UP:IF RORY McILROY required any further incentive for the three tournaments he has pencilled into his diary for the remainder of this year, then it came yesterday morning with the release of the updated official world rankings which saw the 19-year-old Ulsterman move up to 63rd position, a career high and virtually within touching distance of a place in the world's top 50.
McIlroy, who finished fourth in the Singapore Open last weekend, would claim an invite to the US Masters in Augusta next April if he were to break into the top 50 by December 31st.
And, whilst many players have now put away their clubs, at least competitively, for the rest of the year, McIlroy knows that his appearance in this week's Hong Kong Open - and two upcoming tournaments in South Africa - give the in-form northerner a chance to realise a personal goal.
At the start of this year, McIlroy occupied 228th position on the world rankings and it is an indication of his general consistency and good play that he has made such huge strides - improving his ranking by 165 places - without actually winning a tournament. He is now 63rd in the world, just 0.42 percentage points behind Peter Hanson who occupies 50th place.
McIlroy's late-year plans are to play in Hong Kong this week, followed by a two-week break, before wrapping up his season by playing two tournaments in South Africa: the Alfred Dunhill Championship in Leopards Creek and the South African Open at Pearl Valley in Cape Town. By then, he will have given himself every chance to achieve that top-50 target which would earn the Augusta invite.
As things stand, McIlroy has moved into position to claim a likely place in the Accenture World Matchplay in Arizona next February which takes the top 64 players available from the world rankings. The actual field for the matchplay is not decided until mid-February.
Unfortunately for McIlroy, but fortunately for Paul McGinley, his surge up the world rankings came too late to get him a place alongside Graeme McDowell on Ireland's two-man team for the World Cup in Mission Hills in China next week. Once Pádraig Harrington, Ireland's top-ranked player, indicated he would not be playing in the event, the team was filled off the next highest available players which, at the time, were McDowell and, with Darren Clarke declining, the second spot went to McGinley.
McGinley, who hasn't played since the Volvo Masters, resumes competitive play this week in Hong Kong - where McDowell, McIlroy and tour rookie Gareth Maybin complete the Irish quartet - and the Dubliner goes into the event knowing that putting is the one area of his game that needs improvement.
"My putting remains one area that I have to improve on. Despite putting very consistently (this year), I didn't seem to have the hot two or three weeks that seem to be the difference between winning and finishing top-five or top-10. I'll continue to work on it. I have some ideas to work on."
McGinley is on a two-week stint in China, taking in the Hong Kong Open and then next week's World Cup before taking two weeks off and then playing in the South African Open before a winter's break spent "working on my overall game . . . I'd very much like the same as 2008, but with a few hot weeks thrown in," he said.
As far as Harrington is concerned, his year's on-course work is finished. The Dubliner's tie for second alongside Ernie Els in the Singapore Open, won by Jeev Milkha Singh, was sufficient for Harrington to move back to fourth position in the latest world rankings. Singh, incidentally, jumped 14 places to 46th in the listings which puts him in a strong position for an invite to Augusta.
Harrington, who is scheduled to attend tonight's meeting of Munster with the All Blacks ahead of launching the 2010 JP McManus pro-am at Adare Manor tomorrow, is not due to play again competitively until the Abu Dhabi Championship in January.
