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The end-of-year world rankings are out, and they make pretty clear who are the stars of 2009 and who are the flops.
Into the game's top 10 from a year ago have come Rory McIlroy, England's Paul Casey and Americans Steve Stricker, Jim Furyk and Kenny Perry. Out go Sergio Garcia, Vijay Singh, Robert Karlsson, Camilo Villegas and Ernie Els. The biggest climbers are US PGA champion YE Yang, who started the season 478th and finishes it at 31st, and Italian Edoardo Molinari, who has climbed from 653rd to 48th.
Tiger Woods stayed at the top all year, but came close to losing the world number one spot in March as a result of his eight-month lay-off following knee surgery and the gap is bound to close again now that he has announced an indefinite break to try to sort out his personal life.
As Woods approaches his 34th birthday on December 30 it is interesting to note that the majority of players in the world's top 50 are now younger than him.
Chief amongst them, of course, are McIlroy, up from 39th to ninth, and 18-year-old Ryo Ishikawa, who has climbed from 60th to 30th.
But the old guys still had their moments. Kenny Perry, 50 next June, almost won the Masters and, far more amazingly, Tom Watson nearly captured a sixth Open title two months before he reached 60.
