Most Prestigious Tournament outside the Majors?

[Chilli Dipper]

The Official World Golf Ranking system allocates the number of points awarded to the winner of every professional tournament in the world based on the relative strength of the field competing in that particular tournament. Since the world's best players are going to play in the most prestigious events, the logical conclusion is to say an event's prestige can be determined by the number of OWGR points awarded at that event

The four majors award a fixed total of 100 OWGR points to the winner; likewise, the Players Championship winner is guaranteed 80 points. Every other PGA Tour event awards a minimum of 24 points to the winner, with more points awarded to events with stronger fields. Here is how the PGA Tour events of the last 12 months rank in terms of OWGR points:

78 points: WGC-CA Championship
76 points: WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship
74 points: WGC-Bridgestone Invitational
72 points: The Barclays
70 points: Deutsche Bank Championship
68 points: Quail Hollow Invitational
66 points: BMW Championship
62 points: Memorial Tournament, Northern Trust Open, Shell Houston Open
60 points: Arnold Palmer Invitational
58 points: Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial
54 points: Tour Championship, FBR Open
48 points: AT&T; National, Verizon Heritage
46 points: AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, Honda Classic, Transitions Championship
44 points: St. Jude Classic, Mercedes-Benz Championship, Sony Open, Buick Invitational, HP Byron Nelson Championship
38 points: Zurich Classic
36 points: Travelers Championship
34 points: Buick Open, Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open
32 points: John Deere Classic, Childrens Miracle Network Classic, Bob Hope Classic
30 points: RBC Canadian Open, Wyndham Championship, Frys.com Open
28 points: Valero Texas Open ('08)
26 points: Turning Stone Resort Championship, Valero Texas Open ('09)
24 points: U.S. Bank Championship, Legends Reno-Tahoe Open, Viking Classic, Ginn sur Mer Classic, Mayakoba Golf Classic, Puerto Rico Open

On the other hand, here are non-PGA Tour events that have awarded at least 48 points to the winner in the last 12 months, all of which are European Tour-sanctioned events:

64 points: BMW-PGA Championship
54 points: Commercialbank Qatar Masters
52 points: HSBC Champions, Dubai Desert Classic
50 points: Barclays Scottish Open, Dunhill Links Championship, Volvo Masters
48 points: Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, European Open

Now, a few notes:

• With only 30 players in the field, the Tour Championship awards fewer points than the other FedEx Cup events.
• Likewise, the Mercedes-Benz Championship, which invites only the previous year's PGA Tour winners, awards fewer points than its strong field probably deserves.
• The HSBC Champions tournament in Shanghai has been upgraded to a WGC event in 2009, likely meaning a stronger field.
• The Dubai World Championship will be inaugurated this fall as the European Tour finale, with $10 million going to the European Tour's season points winner.
• As a result, the Volvo Masters at Valderrama, the traditional European Tour finale, has been canceled for 2009.
• The 2009 Buick Invitational awarded 16 fewer OWGR points than the 2008 tournament, due to the 2008 U.S. being played at Torrey Pines and the absence of Tiger Woods from the 2009 event.
• The AT&T; Pebble Beach Pro-Am will almost certainly see a stronger field in 2010, as Pebble Beach hosts next year's U.S. Open and Poppy Hills (the course perennially voted as the worst on tour by players) is replaced by the Monterey Peninsula Country Club's Shore Course in the tournament rota.

All together, I'd be willing to say that the pecking order right now goes like this:

1. The Majors
2. The Players Championship
3. The WGC events
4. the FedEx Cup Playoffs events
5. The Euro PGA at Wentworth
6. Quail Hollow
7. Riviera, Bay Hill, Colonial, Muirfield Village (Hogan's, Palmer's, Hogan's, and Nicklaus' tournaments, respectively)

[Golf_Predictor_Guru]

Hard to argue with that previous post! I can confirm that the BMW PGA Championship is held in high esteem over this side of the pond! The season ending Volvo Masters also used to be big in Europe. That is to be replaced this season by the Race to Dubai grand finale (The Dubai World Championship), which promises to be huge!