TOUR PROFESSIONALS know all about the numbers game, which normally involves getting a ball into the hole in as few strokes as possible.

In the coming weeks, however, the focus for many will be on rankings: in the case of Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer, which of them will most likely usurp Tiger Woods as the world’s number one; and, for players like Shane Lowry, there is the pressure of remaining inside the European Tour’s top-60 on the money list and qualifying for the Race to Dubai in November.

Woods, who has held the number one position in the official world rankings for the past 279 weeks, is on borrowed time. In fact, Woods’s decision to stay away from tournament play until the HSBC Champions in Shanghai on November 4th-7th – after which he will play just two more events, the Australian Masters and his own Chevron World Challenge – means Westwood, despite having to miss this week’s Portugal Masters, or Kaymer are finally in line to overtake him.

The world rankings is a complicated and convoluted mechanism which is spread over a two-year frame weighted towards more recent performances and, up until Kaymer’s win in the Dunhill Links championship, it had seemed Westwood was the man most likely to end Woods’s dominance at the top of the rankings which has lasted for the past five straight years.

The recurrence at the Dunhill of Westwood’s calf injury – which kept him out of play from the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in early-August, where he retired after two rounds, up to the Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor – has forced the Englishman out of defending his title in Portugal and, were he not to play again this month, he would overtake Woods on October 31st.

Only 12 players have held the position of world number one apart from Woods (total 621 weeks) since the official rankings were instigated: Bernhard Langer (three weeks), Seve Ballesteros (61 weeks), Greg Norman (331 weeks), Nick Faldo (97 weeks), Ian Woosnam (50 weeks), Fred Couples (16 weeks), Nick Price (44 weeks), Tom Lehman (one week), Ernie Els (nine weeks), David Duval (15 weeks) and Vijay Singh (32 weeks).

But Kaymer’s decision to enter the Andalucian Masters in Valderrama that same week has complicated that apparent head-to-head battle for supremacy.

Kaymer – who has won the US PGA, Dutch Open and Dunhill Links in his last three tour starts – has moved to a career high fourth in the latest rankings and has added the Spanish tournament to his schedule as he seeks to copperfasten his lead at the top of the European Tour Order of Merit, where he is almost €1 million clear of his nearest challenger, Graeme McDowell.

While the milestone of world number one is in sight of either Westwood or Kaymer, other targets – most notably the Race to Dubai – are on the minds of players like Lowry.

Lowry heads into this week’s Portugal Masters occupying the 60th position in the Order of Merit, which is the cut-off point for those players qualifying for the Dubai World Championship which brings the Race to Dubai to a close.

As things stand, eight Irish players – McDowell, Rory McIlroy, Pádraig Harrington, Darren Clarke, Peter Lawrie, Damien McGrane, Gareth Maybin and Lowry – are set to qualify for that megabucks finale to the European Tour in Dubai on November 25th-28th. The final qualifying event is the Hong Kong Open, which finishes on November 21st.

Lowry has a demanding end-of-season schedule lined up in his attempt to make it to Dubai, following on from the Portugal Masters by playing the Castellan Masters, the Andalucian Masters and, after a week’s break, taking in the Singapore Open in his quest to stay inside the top 60 on the moneylist.

Lowry is one of seven Irishmen in action in the Portugal Masters this week, a €3 million tournament which takes place at the Oceanico Victoria Course in Vilamoura. Clarke, Lawrie, Maybin, McGrane, Paul McGinley and Michael Hoey are also in the field.

Elsewhere, Harrington is competing in the Johor Open in Malaysia – close to where he is undertaking his first golf course design in Kuala Lumpur – with the Dubliner’s end-of-season dominated by tournaments in the Far East as he will also be taking in the HSBC Champions and the Singapore Open before heading on to Dubai, while McIlroy’s next tournament will be the Egyptian Open next week.

US Open champion McDowell has a two-week break – in Orlando – before playing in the PGA Grand Slam of Golf in Bermuda, a two-day event which he hopes will kick-start a late duel with Kaymer for the Race to Dubai title.

McDowell will compete in Andalucia, Shanghai, Singapore and Hong Kong in the run-up to Dubai in the knowledge he will likely require a couple of wins in those outings to have any chance of overhauling the German.

GOLF RANKINGS

US MONEY LIST

1 Matt Kuchar (USA)$4,910,477

2 Jim Furyk (USA)$4,809,622

3 Ernie Els (Rsa)$4,558,861

4 Dustin Johnson (USA) $4,473,122

5 Steve St,ricker (USA) $4,190,235

6 Phil Mickelson (USA) $3,821,733

7 Luke Donald (Eng) $3,665,234

8 Paul Casey (Eng) $3,613,194

9 Justin Rose (Eng) $3,603,331

10 Hunter Mahan (USA) $3,564,391

11 Jeff Overton (USA) $3,456,356

12 Tim Clark (Rsa) $3,383,931

13 Retief Goosen (Rsa) $3,218,089

14 Bubba Watson (USA) $3,198,998

15 Camilo Villegas (Col) $3,035,523

RACE TO DUBAI

1 Martin Kaymer (Ger) €3,134,447

2 Graeme McDowell (NIre) €2,138,866

3 Lee Westwood (Eng) €1,878,307

4 Ernie Els (Rsa) €1,807,313

5 Charl Schwartzel (Rsa) €1,765,978

6 Louis Oosthuizen (Rsa) €1,747,726

7 Edoardo Molinari (Ita) €1,735,648

8 Miguel Angel Jimenez (Spa) €1,671,801

9 Ian Poulter (Eng) €1,478,118

10 Paul Casey (Eng) €1,438,864

11 Alvaro Quiros (Spa) €1,241,386

12 Rory McIlroy (NIre) €1,196,200

13 Ross Fisher (Eng) €1,184,654

14 Rhys Davies (Wal) €1,145,096

15 Luke Donald (Eng) €1,143,424

WORLD RANKINGS

1 Tiger Woods (USA) 8.68pts

2 Lee Westwood (Eng) 8.36

3 Phil Mickelson (USA) 8.28

4 Martin Kaymer (Ger) 8.04

5 Steve Stricker (USA) 7.58

6 Jim Furyk (USA) 7.39

7 Paul Casey (Eng) 6.18

8 Luke Donald (Eng) 5.77

9 Rory McIlroy (NIre) 5.50

10 Ernie Els (Rsa) 5.36

11 Matt Kuchar (USA) 5.27

12 Dustin Johnson (USA) 5.06

13 Graeme McDowell (NIre) 4.80

14 Edoardo Molinari (Ita) 4.73

15 Ian Poulter (Eng) 4.65