'Rolex Series Winner' Hoshel, World Ranking Rises from 24th to 17th

BMW PGA Championship Victory Points Earned
Scheffler, Schauffele, McIlroy Maintain 'Top 3'
Im Sungjae 21st, Kim Juhyung 24th, An Byeonghun 34th

‘Rolex Series winner’ Billy Horschel (USA) has jumped to 17th in the world rankings.

Billy Horschel (right) is shaking hands with Rory McIlroy immediately after winning the BMW PGA Championship in a playoff. [Wentworth (England) = AFP·Yonhap News]

In the weekly men's golf world rankings announced on the 22nd (local time), he earned 3.76 points, rising seven spots from 24th place last week. On the same day, he claimed a playoff victory at the DP World Tour (formerly European Tour) Rolex Series BMW PGA Championship (total prize money $9 million) held at Wentworth Club (par 72) in Virginia Water, Surrey, England. After tying with Rory McIlroy (Northern Ireland) and Tristen Lawrence (South Africa) at 20-under 268, he secured the ‘winning eagle’ on the second playoff hole at the 18th hole (par 5). This marked his third European Tour win in three years since his 2021 victory at this event, with a winner’s prize of $1.53 million (approximately 2 billion KRW).

Horschel is a veteran with eight wins on the PGA Tour. Notably, in September 2014, he won back-to-back playoff rounds at the BMW Championship and the Tour Championship, becoming the ‘FedEx Cup champion.’ At the Tour Championship, he caused an upset by defeating then world number one McIlroy. This year, he also demonstrated his strength by capturing the trophy at the Corales Puntacana Championship in April.

With no PGA Tour events this week, there were no changes in the top rankings. Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele (both USA), McIlroy, Collin Morikawa (USA), and Ludvig Aberg (Sweden) maintained their positions in the ‘top 5.’ For Korea, Im Sung-jae is 21st, Kim Joo-hyung 24th, An Byeong-hun 34th, and Kim Si-woo 49th. Lee Kyung-hoon is 145th, Kim Seong-hyun 150th, and Jang Yoo-bin 171st.