World Ranking Follies: Lee Westwood, Martin Kaymer & Graeme McDowell

I've been very busy ignoring Martin Kaymer, Lee Westwood & Graeme McDowell.

The geniuses over at the world rankings would like us to believe they're number 1, 2 and 5 in the world, but you'll have to call me a non-believer.

Let's look at Westwood's record in the majors:

Pretty impressive, eh? It is if you like a guy who has proven his ability come close to winning a major, but not quite be able pull it off when the chips are down.

Then there's Kaymer:

I'm not sure if this is impressive or not. Quite frankly, Kaymer has not played well enough for long enough for him to be number 2 in the world. He may prove to be a fantastic player, but he's not there yet. The word is that he's working on learning to hit the ball left to right for The Masters.

That's a little scary for the number 2 player on the planet. There's no such thing as a minor swing tweak when it comes to world class players. If Kaymer is really tinkering with his swing a couple months before the first major I won't be surprised if he ends up having the long term impact of Shaun Micheel who won the 2003 PGA and then vanished.

Understand that I am not predicting doom for either Westwood or Kaymer. Both or either could end up being the real deal. Still, even though the world ranking system was out of whack when it managed to keep Tiger Woods on top as long as it did and it's similarly out of whack with Westwood and Kaymer at the top of the pyramid.

Don't even get me started with Graeme McDowell...

Sorry, I couldn't help it. I'm just not impressed. My guess is that we'll now watch Graeme McDowell's putter, and his overall game, cool off substantially.

There's nothing more for me to do than to go out on a limb and predict that none of these three fine Euros win a major in 2011.