After a seven-month itch Rory McIlroy has moved back to No. 2 on the World Rankings.

This is on the back of McIlroy’s share of fourth place in Sunday’s concluding WGC – HSBC Champions event in Shanghai.

The effort has seen McIlroy also move to within 1.644 ranking points behind Australia’s Jason Day, who has now been golf’s highest-ranked player since capturing the WGC – Dell Match-Play Championship in March this year.

Rory McIlroy back to World No. 2 for a first time in seven months. (Photo – European Tour)

The last time McIlroy was World No. 2 was three weeks prior to Day’s Texas triumph in finishing T3rd in the WGC – Cadillac Championship.

McIlroy has pushed American Dustin Johnson back to No. 3 while Sweden’s Henrik Stenson, who was joint runner-up last week in China, is the new World No. 4 having bumped Jordan Spieth back to No. 5 in the world.

It is Spieth’s lowest ranking since a week prior his 2015 Masters triumph.

And Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama has taken the Japanese to a high of No. 6 in the world after his success in Shanghai.

Matsuyama is now just one World Ranking place shy of matching Jumbo Ozaki’s career best of 5th in the World Rankings after capturing the 1997 Bridgestone Open on the Japan PGA Tour.

And Matsuyama is already 29 places higher on the Rankings than Ryo Ishikawa who reached a career high of 35th in finishing runner-up in the 2009 Japan Open.