Harrington drops in rankings

Padraig Harrington has dropped a further two places in the world as he prepares for his bid to win The Open for a third year running.

Harrington won the Irish PGA championship – just as he did the last two years - by seven strokes on Saturday, but that does not carry any ranking points and he goes down from 12th to 14th.

That is the same position he was in when he triumphed by four at Birkdale last July, while he was 10th prior to his Carnoustie play-off victory two years ago.

German Martin Kaymer, who yesterday completed an eight-day French and Scottish Opens double, and American Sean O’Hair are now ahead of the Dubliner at 11th and 13th respectively.

Steve Stricker’s victory at the John Deere Classic has taken him up to sixth, but by managing only 46th place at Loch Lomond 20-year-old Rory McIlroy has fallen out of the world’s top 20.

Latest leading positions:

1 Tiger Woods 11.06pts, 2 Phil Mickelson 8.50, 3 Paul Casey 6.62, 4 Kenny Perry 6.26, 5 Sergio Garcia 6.07, 6 Steve Stricker 5.93, 7 Geoff Ogilvy 5.84, 8 Henrik Stenson 5.81, 9 Jim Furyk 5.00, 10 Vijay Singh 4.88, 11 Martin Kaymer 4.87, 12 Camilo Villegas 4.60, 13 Sean O’Hair 4.42, 14 Padraig Harrington 4.42, 15 Anthony Kim 4.29, 16 Robert Karlsson 4.20, 17 Lee Westwood 4.06, 18 Ian Poulter 4.03, 19 Lucas Glover 3.96, 20 Zach Johnson 3.75.

Other leading Europeans:

21 Ross Fisher, 22 Rory McIlroy, 28 Luke Donald, 31 Soren Kjeldsen, 36 Alvaro Quiros, 40 Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano, 42 Miguel Angel Jimenez, 46 Graeme McDowell, 47 Oliver Wilson, 51 Soren Hansen, 53 Justin Rose, 60 Anders Hansen, 61 Peter Hanson, 71 Nick Dougherty, 75 Francesco Molinari, 82 Thomas Levet, 85 Anthony Wall, 93 Johan Edfors.