Harrington tops Ryder Cup standings

Padraig Harrington has moved to the top of the Ryder Cup standings thanks to his fourth-placed finish at the Tour Championship in America last night.

With no counting event in Europe, Harrington takes over from Swede Alex Noren in top spot on the world points list from which the first four members of Colin Montgomerie’s side will come.

As it stands, Harrington is the only Irish player in the automatic qualifying positions.

Phil Mickelson has returned to second place in the world rankings after his win in Atlanta.

Tiger Woods finished runner-up, good enough to give him a $10 million bonus for winning the FedEx Cup play-offs, and has now been top of the rankings for the last 225 weeks and for a total of 567 weeks in his career.

Harrington climbs one place to seventh while Rory McIlroy (24th) and Graeme McDowell (48th) remain inside the top 50.

World Rankings:1 Tiger Woods 16.54pts, 2 Phil Mickelson 8.33, 3 Steve Stricker 7.87, 4 Paul Casey 6.28, 5 Kenny Perry 5.91, 6 Henrik Stenson 5.85, 7 Padraig Harrington 5.73, 8 Sergio Garcia 5.63, 9 Jim Furyk 5.57, 10 Geoff Ogilvy 5.33, 11 Lee Westwood 5.14, 12 Stewart Cink 4.96, 13 Martin Kaymer 4.92, 14 Sean O'Hair 4.72, 15 Vijay Singh 4.41, 16 Camilo Villegas 4.36, 17 Lucas Glover 4.33, 18 Zach Johnson 4.21, 19 Retief Goosen 4.07, 20 Ian Poulter 4.05

Other leading Europeans:23 Robert Karlsson, 24 Rory McIlroy, 25 Ross Fisher, 28 Luke Donald, 32 Soren Kjeldsen, 39 Miguel Angel Jimenez, 41 Soren Hansen, 43 Alvaro Quiros, 44 Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano, 45 Oliver Wilson, 46 Anders Hansen, 48 Graeme McDowell, 61 Chris Wood, 62 Justin Rose, 63 Peter Hanson, 67 Francesco Molinari, 74 Alexander Noren, 90 Nick Dougherty, 92 Simon Dyson, 93 Thomas Levet, 94 Anthony Wall

European Ryder Cup table(top four on world list qualify, then next five on European points list. Captain Colin Montgomerie adds three wild cards):

World points: 1 PADRAIG HARRINGTON 46.3, 2 ALEXANDER NOREN 33.9, 3 ANDERS HANSEN 24.0, 4 RAFAEL CABRERA BELLO 24.0, 5 Soren Hansen 22.1, 6 Bradley Dredge 20.4, 7 Simon Dyson 17.5, 8 Edoardo Molinari 17.1, 9 Sergio Garcia 16.5, 10 Benn Barham 14.4

European points: 1 Alexander Noren 352,330, 2 BRADLEY DREDGE 231,870, 3 Anders Hansen 220,000, 4 Rafael Cabrera Bello 175,260, 5 SOREN HANSEN 164,116, 6 SIMON DYSON 150,216, 7 ROSS McGOWAN 133,011, 8 BENN BARHAM 123,110, 9 Peter Hanson 112,116, 10 Miguel Angel Jimenez 104,000