Steve Stricker’s rise to number two on the Official Golf World Rankings has not affected the number of South Africans who will make the field for the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship which starts on Februry 17 at Dove Mountain in Marana, Arizona.

Stricker displaced Phil Mickelson with his win in the Northern Trust Open in Los Angeles last weekend, but there will still be five South Africans in the field – including the man who eliminated Tiger Woods last year, Tim Clark.

Woods is unlikely to be playing, and Mickelson has already said he would not play this year because of a family vacation that had been postponed because of his wife's breast cancer.

Joining Clark, who is ranked 38th at the cut-off point in this week’s world rankings will be Ernie Els (17), Retief Goosen (20), Charl Schwartzel (37) and Rory Sabbatini (51).

With the two high-profile absentees, and assuming all the other players ranked down to number 66 in the world commit to playing, the players at the lower end of that ranking scale had a roller-coaster of a weekend waiting to see if they qualifiy.

Gonzalo Fenrnandez-Castano of Spain was the really unlucky one, dropping one spot in the rankings to 67.

Ben Curtis also dropped, but his fall was five places from 63 to 68 and his is out of contention.

Ross McGowan of England slipped one position, but stays in the top 66.

The lucky climbers included Kevin Na of the US, who came from 67th to 62, and Chris Wood who also improved by five positions to 65th.

Els will meet Ryan Moore of the US in the opening round if all the players bar Woods and Mickelson commit, while Goosen will meet the Dane Soren Hansen.

Schwartzel will meet Hunter Mahan, with Clark taking on Vijay Singh in an intriguing match of Presidents Cup team-mates and playing partners.

Sabbatini will have the in-form Swede Robert Karlsson to contend with.