Luke Donald Back to #1

Rory can't seem to stay #1 for more than two weeks at a time. Luke's third place finish at the Zurich will have him back to World #1 tomorrow. I think it's patently unfair to have US tournaments named after European cities, giving Euro Tour players a big advantage. You don't see the Kansas City Open in France, do you? And some people said Tiger wouldn't bounce back after playing so poorly at the Masters, but he proved them wrong by moving up a spot. He'll be up to seventh tomorrow, passing Martin Kaymer. Imagine what he'll do when he actually plays this week!

Nice points. I am glad to see Rory off the top spot. And can't wait to see Tiger get that #1 spot, again.

I find this whole thing hilarious.  It changes every two weeks while one guy is sitting at home sipping tea.

Brandon

Please tell me you are joking.

Yes, he was joking.

Rory lost most of the points because his 2010 Quail Hollow went off the board, right? Or is that this week?

No, that's the problem with the WGR that I and another fellow post about from time to time. That victory at Quail Hollow has actually been hurting Rory's average for the last several weeks, because they depreciate the points all the way down to zero. He got 64 points for winning it two years ago, but now it has depreciated down to 1.39 points. Since his average is over nine points, it's hurting him. When it drops out of the window next week, his average will go up, other things being equal. Which they aren't. He has a lot of big-point events from last year, and they depreciate every week, too. That's why his average falls a lot when he doesn't play, while Tiger's doesn't fall very much (because he won relatively few points last year, except at the very end). It's tough to stay on top, even though Tiger made it look easy. You can see exactly how many points a player gets from each event he played in for the last two years by going to the WGR website, and clicking on the player's name. http://www.officialworldgolfranking.com/rankings/default.sps

Nice little article in the latest Golf World magazine about the OWGR and suggested changes to make it more mathematically relevant based on studies by a couple Dartmouth professors: http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-tours-news/2012-04/gwar-stachura-world-golf-ranking They've come up with a methodology that better ranks the golfers by comparing how they score when playing the same courses and against each other.

One of the interesting things is a table showing how different players would rank in their methodology compared to the current system (at the end of 2010).    The version below is a little hard to read, but if you look at the article link it is more clear.     I'd like to see this table based on today.....would be interesting.

This list is a joke right?

Anthony Kim is ahead of Bubba Watson and Charl Schwartzel? (thought AK retired).

Ian Poulter and Paul Casey are ahead of Luke Donald and Hunter Mahan?

I wonder how long it took them to come up with a system that put Tiger Woods in second place.  LOL!!!

It makes sense over the course of 2 years.  If you want to know who is playing the best RIGHT NOW and say they are the #1 player in the world then it doesn't work out well for you.

Scary to think that you might not be. :~(

Their list puts him in 1st place (if I'm reading it correctly).

The list is of the top 100 golfers as of the end of 2010 (as shown by their numbers in the left hand column).  The number on the right side of their name shows where they would be based on the new criteria.

Brandon

Clearly the world golf ranking is a lagging indicator of who is playing the best.

+ 1.  At this point who really cares who is #1.  Its not like anyone actually thinks Luke is the best golfer in the world anyways.

If not Luke, then who? Point is that you can't determine who's the best golfer in the world from week to week. Jason Dufner is the best golfer in the world right now since he won the last PGA tournament? The only way for a list like this to work is by using a points system over time, just like the one they got. You can argue that the wins dated back too far are included, but that's just how they define it. The smaller period of time you use, the bigger changes will be seen from week to week. Having it span over a couple of months seems silly to me. Perhaps 12 months is better. I've yet to see someone come up with a better system than the current one. Why is it hilarious that the number one player can keep his spot without playing for a couple of weeks? If they made the system work over a shorter period of time, you'd have 10 #1's over a year. What does that help in determining the "worlds best golfer"? Should Bubba be number one because he won a couple of tournaments so far this year?

I think they should update the ranking only once every month not every week. This would probably help the casual golf fan understanding the ranking changes a little bit better.

They got the FedEx Cup and money list for the week to week changes. When you make a list of the worlds best athletes in any given sport, you want more than the last month as reference.

The OWGR are confusing only because of Woods absence and injuries. He would have been #1 for 20 years and the only relevance they really had was top 64 for WGC events.

Everyone knew who was number 1.

Now they change every week. I don't pay any attention to them.