Rory McIlroy has ended the year as golf's world number one for the first time with a comfortable lead at the top of the official rankings over Luke Donald and Tiger Woods who improved 20 places on his 2011 end-of-year ranking.
The 23-year-old Ulsterman won four tournaments during the year including his second major at the USPGA Championship in August.
Australia's Geoff Ogilvy missed out on the top-50 by .01 of a point so he might not get a start at the US Masters in April.
The top ranked New Zealanders are Danny Lee at 254, Michale Hendry 277 and Michael Campbell 286.
The new Australian PGA champion Daniel Popovich has jumped from 1251st to 363rd.
