Abraham Ancer vaults to career-high 11th in OWGR

Mexico’s Abraham Ancer rose to a career-high 11th in the Official World Golf Ranking the day after his breakthrough victory at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational.

Ancer won in a playoff to claim his first PGA Tour title, and vaulted 12 spots in the world rankings on Monday.

The top five spots remained unchanged with Jon Rahm followed by Dustin Johnson, Collin Morikawa, Xander Schauffele and Justin Thomas.

Bryson DeChambeau rose one spot to No. 6 despite his Sunday collapse and Louis Oosthuizen climbed ahead of Brooks Koepka, who dropped two places to No. 8. Patrick Cantlay and Harris English, who blew a back-nine Sunday lead, round out the top 10.

Hideki Matsuyama rose three spots to No. 17 and Sam Burns climbed seven spots to a career-high No. 25 after they tied for second at TPC Southwind.

Burns, who claimed his maiden Tour victory at the Valspar Championship in May, continued his push to make the U.S. Ryder Cup team. The former LSU star is now 17th in the standings.

The top six will earn automatic spots following the second leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs at the BMW Championship, with Steve Stricker making his six captain’s picks after the Tour Championship.

Ancer had four runner-ups on the PGA Tour, most recently at this year’s Wells Fargo Championship, before finally breaking through on Sunday. It continues a strong recent stretch that also includes a fourth at the Travelers Championship, T59 at The Open Championship and a T14 at the Olympics.

He sank a birdie putt on the second playoff hole to outlast Burns and Matsuyama.

“Definitely a dream, a dream come true to win on the PGA Tour, and to do it on a big stage like a WGC event was really, really cool, man,” Ancer said. “It was a crazy round. I thought I was going to need a really low one to have a chance today, but it just worked out that it was like pretty much survival mode on the back nine.”

Abraham Ancer becomes first Mexican to win a WGC | 2021 WGC – FedEx St. Jude Invitational