The World Golf Rankings Explained

Welcome to my first The Numbers Game column. I’m David Mosher, a new staff member here at The Sand Trap, though many will know me as “underparnv” in our forum.

This first week I’ll be talking about the Official World Golf Ranking. First, I want to explain how they work. Then I’ll take a look at how they have affected the top ten in the past five years. We all know Tiger has dominated them with Vijay having a stint at the top, but what about the rest of the players? How have the rankings separated the top ten in points?

Overview
The World Golf Ranking is computed via a math formula that is not all that complex once you break it down. Though you can read the official definition, I’ve attempted to put it into into laymen terms, and this is what I was able to come up with:

Any golfer that plays on any of the six professional tours, the Canadian, Nationwide and/or Challenge Tours are eligible for points which are awarded based on their finish in events of those respective tours. The base point value for each event is based upon the tour the event is on, the strength of the field (based on the Official World Golf Ranking), and the prestige of the tournament being played.

From there, points are accrued on a two year rolling cycle. After passing weeks, points are decreased in weight so that a player’s most recent tournament finishes are more heavily weighed in their average point total, which becomes their ranking.

Inside the Top Ten
Over the past five years, the top ten has seen a total of twenty players, two of them holding the number one ranking (Woods & Singh). The table shows the difference (in average points) from the tenth-place finisher to the first-place finisher and the average points of the top ten. What I found interesting with this is that the tenth-place player was closest to the number one spot when Tiger was going through his swing changes in 2004. Then, after the metamorphosis was complete, he pulled away and actually increased the average points of the top ten single handedly.

Year    1st Place     10th Place     Diff    Top 10 Avg
----    ---------     ----------     ----    -----------
2001     15.67          4.95        -10.72      7.31
2002     15.72          4.39        -11.33      6.90
2003     14.58          5.08         -9.50      7.50
2004     12.79          4.65         -8.14      7.62
2005     17.16          4.58        -12.58      7.83
2006     20.41          5.21        -15.20      7.67

I also found it interesting that in 2006, almost all of the numbers increased. Does this mean that in 2007 we should expect a closer top 10? Or does it just mean that Tiger is just so on his game that no one will be able to touch him?

The Debate
The debate over the World Rankings began when the first World Match Play event was played. This was really the first time the ranking system was used to determine who would be in the field for that weeks tournament. The controversy, however, wasn’t surrounding the number one spot but rather the 64th spot. According to Dean Knuth back in 1999, the rankings are, “…full of fertilizer and need more than tweaking.”

Mr. Knuth believed that the rankings were not providing enough points to players who were playing well in the most recent events, among other things. His findings also state that the lower level golfers get the shaft the most because of the points disparity below fifth place.

To some extent, I agree with Mr. Knuth’s findings, epically the fact that if one of the top ten players were to play in a non-PGA Tour event, that event jumps up in status. This is a problem mostly for the international events when big names, such as Els, play in those events. In the grand scheme of things, though, I feel that the rankings are pretty darn accurate.

Conclusion
From this data, we can see that the more consistent you can play year after year (even week after week), the higher your position will be. This is apparent by the fact that Ernie Els hasn’t finished higher than 3rd in the rankings, but has been consistent over the past five years having not finished below 5th place by the end of the year.

This article was written by guest author Harry Solomon, an active member of our forum.