Jon Rahm faces five-way fight to retain No 1 ranking at The Players Championship
Jon Rahm could be involved in a five-way fight to retain his world No 1 ranking when The Players Championship gets underway this weekend in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Collin Morikawa, Viktor Hovland, Patrick Cantlay, and Scottie Scheffler are all within striking distance of the Spaniard, who is aiming to retain top spot for the 42nd week of his career. When Scheffler moved into fifth in the Official World Golf Ranking following Sunday’s victory at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, it made this the first week in the history of the ranking system that each of the top five players are all younger than 30. The Players champion earns 80 OWGR points, whereas standard tournaments offer a much smaller number of points that varies by the strength of field. That big prize creates scenarios where Morikawa, Hovland, Cantlay or Scheffler could overtake Rahm, who has held onto No 1 since the 2021 Open Championship. Morikawa and Hovland became Tour rookies at the same time in 2019 and have not ne...