After Phil Mickelson's maiden World Golf tournament win at Doral, he was asked about the fact that he was now knocking on the door, point-wise, to becoming the number-one ranked player in the world. Lefty earned an indelible amount of respect by brushing off the question as essentially irrelevant. The fact was, and Lefty knew it all too well, that he was in his current position not because of his play. He was in the position because the world's number one ranked player simply has been injured and unable to play for nearly a full year.

His exact words:

"He's greatest player of all time. I don't want to go there with the world ranking. What I'm excited about is I'm playing some of my best golf."

Close, Yes

After his win at Doral, Mickelson was in fact knocking on the door. At the time, Woods rating of 8.855 was less than two-tenths of a point above the point rating of the CA Champion who then totaled 8.657.

As the questioner alluded, if Woods were to come up short at Arnie's tourney and Mickelson were to take home the Shell Houston Open the following week, Lefty would in fact assume the number one position for the first time in his career.

Of course, those what ifs went completely the other way: Woods winning with another amazing putt on the 72^nd hole at Bay Hill and Mickelson posting a dismal nine over tally and a missed cut in Texas this past week.

Just like that, the margin now stands at 10.095 to 8.514 as the two head to the Masters. But still, compared to other years, the numbers remain remarkably close.

Close, But

To get a sense of why those numbers are so close, one has to understand the rankings and how they come about. Here, Mickelson did every one a favor by noting the only reason Woods was now in Lefty's sights was that Woods had been unable to compete for eight months. He simply hasn't played enough tournaments to maintain his point tally.

In fact, here are the comparative performances of the two golfers. In just his third event since returning from injury, Woods winning at Bay Hill gave him one win and two top tens in three starts in 2009. In the nine events he has played in since the beginning of the 2008 season, Woods now has five wins (including one major). And going back to 2006, Woods has won 15 of his last 28 official PGA events and four majors.

On the other hand, Phil Mickelson has won two of the seven PGA events this season. Most importantly, since the beginning of 2008, Lefty has played in 28 sanctioned PGA tournaments and posted a total of four wins.

That's 15 wins for Woods - 4 for Lefty.

So the number is just that, a number - there is no comparison when it comes to true performance.

Masters Excitement

Still, everyone is hopeful that Mickelson is indeed ready to give Tiger a go this week in Augusta. Prior to Houston, Mickelson appeared to be ready to rumble and a battle royal would be great for the Tour.

And if somehow Lefty could overtake Tiger over the next couple of weeks, it would mark the first time since June 12, 2005 that someone other than Woods was ranked first. That would certainly be great for the competitive side of the game of golf.

But if it does not happen real soon, during this period where the number of tournaments played is holding Woods back, then look out. Because there is nothing in the other numbers that would indicate anyone but Tiger will sit atop of the World Golf Rankings.