Rory McIlroy will return to World No. 1 should he capture this week’s Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines.

It’s been well over four-years since McIlroy was last atop of the rankings and that was in teeing-up in his defence of the 2015 PGA Championship at Whistling Straits and where a 17th place result dropped him to World No. 2.

In the intervening period we’ve seen Jason Day, Jordan Spieth, Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, Justin Rose and Brooks Koepka rule the golf world.

Rory McIlroy will return to World No. 1 should he capture this week’s Farmers Insurance Open

Koepka, who first went to World No. 1 for a fortnight in 2018 has been atop of the World Rankings for the past 39 weeks since capturing the 2019 PGA Championship.

McIlroy has been closing the gap on Koepka with a third in last year’s inaugural ZoZo Championship in Japan, a win the following week at the WGC- HSBC Champions in Shanghai and then closing out 2019 with a T4th finish at the DP World Tour Championship.

McIlroy has contested the Farmers Insurance Open just once in his career and that was a T5th result last year and with Koepka taking a week off before returning to the Middle East to contest next week’s Saudi Invitational.