Brett Rumford gave himself an early double birthday present at the weekend. Not only did the Australian, who will be 27 on Tuesday, win the Nissan Irish Open in fine style, the victory also saw him take great strides up the Official World Golf Ranking.
Rumford, who beat home hope Padraig Harrington and Frenchman Raphaël Jacquelin by four shots at County Louth, improved his Ranking by 113 places to World Number 154. Harrington maintained the World Number Eight spot while Jacquelin broke back into the World Top 100 in 97th position.
Elsewhere, Carlos Franco repeated his 1999 win in Milwaukee at the US Bank Championship on the US PGA Tour. A final round of 67 gave the Paraguayan a two stroke victory over Fred Funk and Brett Quigley. Franco climbed back into the World Top 100 with a jump of 36 places to 91st position.
On the Japan Golf Tour Korean Kim Jong-Duk won the Sato Shokuhin NST Niigata Open by a convincing margin of five strokes and he moves to the World Number 156 position.
This week’’s other winners were Charles Warren at the Samsung Canadian PGA Championship on the Nationwide Tour and Sweden’’s Fredrik Henge at The JJB Sports North West Challenge on the European Challenge Tour.
