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A22 sports
Wednesday 20 March 2019

Isner returns to

scene of 1st Masters Charles Howell III, left, walks off the 17th green after making a putt during the third round of the

Arnold Palmer Invitational golf tournament Saturday, March 9, 2019, in Orlando, Fla.
1000 title in Miami PGA Tour Associated Press

aBy HOWARD FENDRICH
AP Tennis Writer Continued from Page 18 The PGA Tour has heard ropean Tour in the Qatar
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — When John Isner first got to enough complaints from Masters. Points are deter-
town for his Miami Open title defense, he went for a prac- Migliozzi received 24 rank- enough players and their mined by who is playing
tice session at the old tournament site in Key Biscayne ing points, the minimum for managers that after meet- any given week. The No. 1
instead of the new location at the stadium used by the the European Tour. ing with the OWGR board player in the field is worth
NFL’s Dolphins. It’s like that just about ev- last summer, it commis- 45 points, with 37 points for
It wasn’t that he wasn’t sure where to go, of course. Nor ery week somewhere in the sioned a study by a pair No. 2 player, all the way
was he trying to soak up the good vibes at the place world. It’s been like that for of mathematicians that down to two points for
where he won an ATP Masters 1000 trophy for the first time. the better part of 20 years. revealed what many al- players from No. 81 to 100,
“It was just about convenience. Close to my hotel. I just The Official World Golf ready suspected about the and one point for every-
wanted to break a sweat and went out there. It was pret- Ranking tries to mea- allocation of points around one from No. 101 through
ty weird, actually. Kind of quiet. The place still has its allure sure golfers from 20 tours the world. It’s not that PGA 200. There is also is a “home
to it, but it definitely seems different,” Isner said Tuesday. around the world, from the Tour events are not getting tour” bonus.
“We’re all used to pulling into that parking lot and the PGA Tour to the Nordic Golf enough ranking points, but The Players Championship
place is bustling. Wasn’t like that.” League. It’s an impossible that other tours are getting had 882 points. The Kenya
There wasn’t much bustle at the new-look Miami Open task that the OWGR, which too many. Open had 17 points. The
on the initial day of scheduled main-draw play, which dates to 1986, has largely According to two people field points for Harding’s
was completely wiped out because of rain throughout gotten right. Or at least in a meeting last week at five wins were 5, 7, 12, 5
Tuesday. close enough. the TPC Sawgrass, the tour and 61.
They’ll try again to get started Wednesday; No. 9 Isner The question is whether wants the OWGR board to “It needs work. It needs a
and other seeded men such as Novak Djokovic and Rog- that’s good enough. conduct its own analysis to lot of work,” said Brooks Ko-
er Federer won’t play before Friday thanks to first-round “The world ranking has the see if the results are similar. epka, who speaks from the
byes. first 35 to 40 correct,” said They spoke to The Associat- experience of having start-
Isner, 10-6 this season, arrived at the hard-court tourna- Charles Howell III, who in ed Press on condition of an- ed on the Challenge Tour
ment in 2018 with a 1-6 mark. He proceeded to win six February returned to the onymity because the PGA in 2012, worked his way to
matches in a row, three against men ranked in the top six. top 50 in the world for the Tour has not commented the European Tour, then
“I do know that, look, odds are, I probably won’t defend first time in 11 years. “I’m publicly on the study. the PGA Tour and eventu-
this title,” he said with a chuckle after touring the Humane not saying I should have The tour has a seat on the ally reached No. 1 in the
Society of Greater Miami with Alexander Zverev, the run- been there, or that any OWGR board, as do other world last year.
ner-up at the Miami Open a year ago. “At the same time, other player should have tours. Does it matter that Throw out the majors and
it is cool coming back as the defending champion of a been there. I’m saying winning the Kenya Open the World Golf Champi-
tournament of this magnitude. Never been in this situa- that the world ranking is so was equal to fourth place onships, and the average
tion before. Just looking forward to it. No pressure. I don’t darn important that No. 40 at The Players Champi- ranking points for PGA Tour
look at it as, ‘Oh, I’m going to lose a bunch of points.’ You through 100 ... you’ve got onship? Not yet. Migliozzi winners last year was near-
can’t look at it like that. It’s just another tournament you to get that right. moved up 377 spots to No. ly 19 points more than Eu-
want to do well in.” “If world events and majors 199. But it mattered to Jus- rope. And it figures to get
Isner says his performance in Florida gave him a boost have entry based on the tin Harding, a 33-year-old stronger. Ten years ago,
that helped him later in the season, including his semifinal world ranking, then it bet- South African who finished the PGA Tour had 39 of the
showing at Wimbledon in July, the best he’d ever done at ter be an accurate, good in a three-way tie for sec- top 50 players in the world
a Grand Slam tournament. system.” ond at the Kenya Open to start the year. It had 46
So did that carry over into this season, too? Augusta National is two and moved up four spots of the top 50 to start this
“Unfortunately, I feel like it has a shelf life,” said Isner, who weeks away from award- to No. 48 in the world, giv- year.
lost to Reilly Opelka in an all-American matchup in the first ing a Masters invitation to ing him a reasonable shot The concern might be mak-
round of the Australian Open in January. “Every player is the top 50 in the world. In at getting into the Masters. ing the PGA Tour so strong
different, but I feel like, for me, when you start the new late May, the world ranking Harding has won five times that it’s hard for players
year, everything is reset. Even if you played fantastic at determines who gets in the over the last 10 months — from around the world to
the end of the year last year, you have two months off, U.S. Open (top 60) and Brit- twice in South Africa, twice advance unless they all
and everything resets.”q ish Open (top 50). in Asia, once on the Eu- came to America.q