Tiger can be #1 this year without winning anything

[brocks]

Before anyone gets too excited, this is not a prediction; it is a discussion of mathematical possibilities. But there is a lot of misinformation on the blogs about how Tiger would have to win ten events this year to get back to number one. The fact is, he could be number one by the end of March. He's committed to the ATT, the Match Play, and the WGC-Cadillac. AFAIK he hasn't committed yet to Bay Hill, but he always plays it if he's healthy, so it's safe to assume he'll play it this year. Winning those four events would give him about 250 World Golf Ranking points. He already has over 150, and most of them are recent, which means he's not losing points to attrition very fast. So by the end of March, he could have about 400 total WGR points. Divided by the minimum divisor of 40, that gives him an average of 10.0. The current #1, Luke Donald, has an average of 9.75, and didn't play especially well last week at Abu Dhabi. In other words, winning those four events could easily put him back at #1 by the end of March. Of course, it's not likely. He's won up to seven in a row before, but he was playing better then. More realistically, he's shown that even at this early stage of rebuilding, he can get top 5 finishes against world class fields. If he continues to do that, he'll get about 80 points from the four events, and if the other players' averages stay about the same, Tiger will be ranked around 5th by Masters time. That's when the points really go up, with the four majors each giving 100 points to the winner, and the Players another 80. Throw in Quail Hollow and Memorial, and that's another 120. If Tiger can average top 5's in those, he'll easily make the FedEx playoffs, which give another four high-value events. There's also the WGC-Bridgestone and Tiger's ATT National. Add them all up, and there are about 1000 points up for grabs. If Tiger can average a top 3 finish in them, he'll earn about 400 points. Again, that would put him back on top by September. So the bottom line is, Tiger doesn't need to win at all to get back to #1, and he can do it by September. If he does get back to winning every third or fourth time he plays, he'll do it faster than that. OK, I said the above wasn't a prediction. But this is: I predict he'll win at least one major, at least one WGC, and at least two other events this year, and will be back at #1 by year's end. And that will be the end of parity. Next year, full dominance will resume.

[iacas]

We know. Luke Donald basically ascended to #1 without winning nearly as much as Tiger did before (he added wins later in the year, and IIRC, he won the event that put him to #1).

The minimum divisor is hurting Tiger right now. If you took his total and divided it by the number of events he's actually played, I forget what it is but he'd be something like fifth or sixth in the world right now, maybe higher.

Either way, Tiger's not going to be content to be #1 without winning things, and majors at that, nor will most golf fans.