Official World Golf Ranking

The Official World Golf Ranking is a system for rating the performance level of male professional golfers (although there is no rule prohibiting women from being ranked). It was introduced in 1986 and is endorsed by the four major championships and six major professional tours, five of which are charter members of the International Federation of PGA Tours:

• PGA Tour
• European Tour
• Asian Tour (not a charter member of the Federation)
• PGA Tour of Australasia
• Japan Golf Tour
• Sunshine Tour

Points are also awarded for high finishes on six other tours:

• Canadian Tour, which became a full member of the Federation in 2009
• OneAsia Tour, not a member of the Federation, but a joint venture between two charter members and two other tours that became full members in 2009
• Nationwide Tour, the official developmental tour for the PGA Tour
• Challenge Tour, the official developmental tour for the European Tour
• Korean Tour, from 2011
• Tour de las Américas, from 2011

History

The initiative for the creation of the Official World Golf Ranking came from the Championship Committee of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, which found in the 1980s that its system of issuing invitations to The Open Championship on a tour by tour basis was omitting an increasing number of top players because more of them were dividing their time between tours, and from preeminent sports agent Mark McCormack, who was the first chairman of the International Advisory Committee which oversees the rankings. The system used to calculate the rankings was developed from McCormack's World Golf Rankings, which were published in his World of Professional Golf Annual from 1968 to 1985, although these were purely unofficial and not used for any wider purpose (such as inviting players to major tournaments).

The first ranking list was published prior to the 1986 Masters Tournament. The top six ranked golfers were: Bernhard Langer, Seve Ballesteros, Sandy Lyle, Tom Watson, Mark O'Meara and Greg Norman. Thus the top three were all European, but there were 31 Americans in the top 50 (compared with 17 at the end of 2010).

The method of calculation of the rankings has changed considerably over the years. Initially, the rankings were calculated over a three year period, with the current year's points multiplied by four, the previous year's points by two and the third year's points by one. Rankings were based on the total points and points awarded were restricted to integer values. All tournaments recognised by the world's professional tours, and some leading invitational events, were graded into categories ranging from major championship (whose winners would receive 50 points) to "other tournaments" (whose winners would receive a minimum of 8). In all events, other finishers received points on a diminishing scale that began with runners-up receiving 60% of the winners' points, and the number of players in the field receiving points would be the same as the points awarded to the winner. In a major, for example, all players finishing 30th to 40th would receive 2 points, and all players finishing 50th or higher, 1 point.

Beginning in April 1989, the rankings were changed to be based on the average points per event played instead of simply total points earned, subject to a minimum divisor of 60 (20 events per year). This was in order to more accurately reflect the status of some (particularly older) players, who played in far fewer events than their younger contemporaries but demonstrated in major championships that their ranking was artificially low. Tom Watson, for example, finished in the top 15 of eight major championships between 1987 and 1989, yet had a "total points" ranking of just 40th; his ranking became a more realistic 20th when based on "average points". A new system for determining the "weight" of each tournament was also introduced, based on the strength of the tournament's field in terms of their pre-tournament world rankings. Major championships were guaranteed to remain at 50 points for the winners, and all other events could attain a maximum of 40 points for the winner if all of the world's top 100 were present. In practice most PGA Tour events awarded around 25 points to the winner, European Tour events around 18 and JPGA Tour events around 12.

In 1996, the three year period was reduced to two years, with the current year now counting double. Points were extended to more of the field, beginning in 2000, and were no longer restricted to integer values. Beginning in September 2001, the tapering system was changed so that instead of the points for each result being doubled if they occurred in the most recent 12 months, one eighth of the initial "multiplied up" value was deducted every 13 weeks. This change effectively meant that players could now be more simply described as being awarded 100 points (not 50) for winning a major. Beginning in 2007, the system holds the points from each event at full value for 13 weeks and then reduces them in equal weekly increments over the remainder of the two year period.

At first only the Championship Committee of the Royal and Ancient used the rankings for official purposes, but the PGA Tour recognized them in 1990, and in 1997 all five of the then principal men's golf tours did so. The rankings, which had previously been called the Sony Rankings, were renamed the Official World Golf Rankings at that time. They are run from offices in Virginia Water in Surrey, England.

Fifteen players have been Official World No. 1. Seve Ballesteros took over from Bernhard Langer shortly after Langer had been the first ranking leader in 1986 and then vied with Greg Norman for the No.1 spot for three years, when Nick Faldo took over as Greg Norman’s main rival. Ian Woosnam and Fred Couples held the position at various times during 1991 and 1992 before Nick Faldo took over again until 1994, when Nick Price’s career year took him to No. 1. Greg Norman would return to the top ranking in 1995 and 1996, then after a single week at No. 1 by Tom Lehman, Tiger Woods dominated the position from 1997 to 2010 with brief interruptions from Ernie Els, David Duval, and then from September 2004 Vijay Singh, who became the twelfth World No. 1 following his win at the PGA championship. He and Woods would swap the position several times in 2005, but Woods eventually reopened a wide lead at the top. Woods' lead over his nearest rivals in the rankings in June 2008 was large enough that he remained number one at the end of that year, despite taking six months off following knee surgery. Woods holds the longest consecutive streak as No. 1 at 281 weeks. This streak was ended in October 2010 by England's Lee Westwood who subsequently became the second English World No. 1; the third from Britain, and the fifth from Europe. On February 27, 2011, Martin Kaymer took over the number one ranking from Westwood, becoming the second German to be ranked number one after Bernhard Langer. On April 24, 2011, Lee Westwood regained the number one position following a victory in Indonesia; but on May 29, 2011, Luke Donald took the world number one spot from Westwood by defeating him in a sudden death playoff for the BMW PGA Championship. In so doing, Donald became the first player ever to reach the official number one position despite having never finished as either a champion or a runner-up in a major championship.

Calculation of the rankings^[1]

1. Event Ranking

The first stage in the calculation is the ranking of each event. For most events the ranking depends on the current world rankings of the participating golfers and the participation of the leading golfers from the "home tour".

A "world rating value" is calculated. Any golfer currently ranked in the world top 200 is given a rating value. The world number 1 is allocated 45, the number 2 is allocated 38, the number 3 is allocated 32, down to those ranked between 101 and 200 who are allocated a rating value of 1 each. The maximum possible world rating value is 925 but this would only happen if all the top 200 golfers were playing.

A "home tour rating value" is calculated. The leading 30 golfers from the "home tour" are given rating values in a similar way. The home tour number 1 is allocated 8 down to those from 16 to 30 who are allocated a rating value of 1 each. The maximum home tour rating value is 75 if all the top 30 players from the home tour are competing. The total home tour rating value is limited to 75% of the world rating value.

The world rating value and home tour rating value are added together to given a total rating value. This is then converted into an event ranking using a table. As examples, a total rating value of 10 converts to an event ranking of 10, a total rating value of 100 converts to an event ranking of 24, while a total rating value of 500 converts to an event ranking of 62.

Major championships have a fixed event ranking of 100 points. For each tour there is a minimum ranking for each event. In addition, most tours have a "flagship event" that is guaranteed a higher ranking.

Tournaments which are reduced to 54 holes by inclement weather or other factors retain full points, but if a tournament is reduced to 36 holes, its points allocation is reduced by 25%.

The events with the highest total rating value in 2011 are shown in the following table.

A further 16 tournaments had an event ranking from 50 to 58. 9 of these were PGA Tour events, while 7 were European Tour events.

2. Player Rankings

Having calculated the ranking of the event, the ranking points of the players for that event can be calculated. The winner's ranking points are the same as the ranking of the event, so that major winners get 100 ranking points. The second place golfer gets 60% of this amount, 40% for 3rd, 30% for 4th, 24% for 5th, down to 14% for 10th, 7% for 20th, 3.5% for 40th to 1.5% for 60th. Players tied for a position share the points for those positions so that if, for example, two players tie for second place they would each receive 50%, the average of 60% and 40%.

A player's ranking points for an event must be at least 1.2. Players who would get less than this using the above formula get no ranking points. For example if an event has a ranking of 10 only the leading 12 players (and ties) receive any ranking points since the player in 12th place gets 12% of the event ranking (i.e. 1.2). The player in 13th position gets no points. The only exceptions to this system are in the major championships where all players who make the cut get a minimum of 1.5 ranking points.

3. Adjusted Rankings

For the first 13 weeks after an event the player receives the full ranking points earned in that event. However from then onwards they are reduced in equal weekly increments over the remainder of a two year period. This gives priority to recent form. Each week the ranking points are reduced by a factor of 1/92 (approximately 1.09%) so that in week 14 only 98.91% of the ranking points are credited, continuing until week 104 when only 1.09% is credited. From week 105 the ranking points are completely lost.

4. Ranking Average

The player's adjusted points for all events in the two year period are then added together, and this total is divided by the number of events to give the average ranking. However, players are subject to both a minimum and maximum number of events over the two year period.

If a player competes in less than 40 tournaments over the two year period his adjusted points total is divided by 40 and not the actual number of events he has played in.

As from 2010, a maximum number of tournaments is also used. The maximum number was initially set to 60 from January 2010 and was reduced by 2 every six months until it reached 52 in January 2012. This means that as of the start of 2012 only the player's 52 most recent tournaments (within the two year period) will be used to calculate his ranking average.^[18]

The resulting averages for all players are put into descending order to produce the ranking table. This means that the player who has obtained most cumulative success does not necessarily come top of the rankings: it is average performance levels that are important, and some golfers play substantially more tournaments than others. New rankings are released every Monday.

Importance of the rankings

A professional golfer's ranking is of considerable significance to his career. For example, a ranking in the World Top 50 explicitly grants automatic entry to three of the four majors and three of the four current World Golf Championships; see table below. Starting in 2012, a ranking in the top 70 will grant automatic entry to the Tournament of Hope, a fifth WGC event to be launched that year.^[19] Also, ranking points are the sole criterion for selection for the International Team in the Presidents Cup and one of the qualification criteria for the European Ryder Cup team. The rankings are also used to help select the field for various other tournaments.

Note: The PGA Championship does not have an official automatic entry based on the Official World Golf Ranking but has invited those in the top 100 for the last several years. It makes note of its strong field by referencing the number of top 100 ranked golfers entered in its press releases. [1] [2]

The rankings are well known to those who follow men's professional golf and feature prominently in media coverage of the sport. When Vijay Singh temporarily ended Tiger Woods' record run as world number 1 in 2004 it was one of the most reported golf stories of the year.

Current rankings

These are the top 10 ranked golfers and their point tallies as of December 31, 2011.

Since the introduction of the latest rating method in September 2001, the highest points average as well as the largest lead in points average were set by Tiger Woods on September 16, 2007. After winning the BMW Championship and The Tour Championship in consecutive weeks, he had an average of 24.36 and a lead of 14.73 points over Phil Mickelson.^[21]

Ernie Els holds the record for most weeks in the World Top 10, with 788. He is followed by Tiger Woods (736 weeks) and Phil Mickelson (701 weeks).^[22][23][24]

Number 1 ranked golfers

Order – indicates the sequence in which the players first reached number 1.
Majors – number of major championships each player has won throughout his golfing career.

These are the golfers who have topped the rankings, in order of the number of weeks they have spent at Number 1 up to December 31, 2011, at which date Luke Donald was World Number 1.

Of these players Bernhard Langer and Seve Ballesteros would be most likely to gain additional weeks at number 1 if the rankings were backdated to before April 1986, with Ballesteros also being ranked number one in Mark McCormack's world golf rankings (from which the Official World Rankings were developed) in 1983, 1984, and 1985. Those rankings were only published at the end of each year, which implies an additional 100 to 150 weeks for Ballesteros as number one to those listed in the table above. Tom Watson was number one according to McCormack's system from 1978 to 1982, implying around 250 to 300 weeks as number one; Jack Nicklaus was number one on those year-end rankings from their first publication in December 1968 to 1977 inclusive, and would have been likely to have been number one from around 1965 onwards if the McCormack rankings, in themselves, had been backdated, implying a total of around 600 to 650 weeks as number one.

Discussion caused by the "number one" ranking

On a few occasions the ranking system has caused discussion about whether it has produced the "right" World Number One. This usually occurs when the number one ranked player has not won a major championship during the ranking period, while a rival has won more than one—notably at the end of 1990, when Nick Faldo remained ranked just behind Greg Norman despite winning three majors in two years. On that occasion, as detailed in Mark McCormack's "World of Professional Golf 1991" annual, it was also the case (but less immediately apparent) that Norman had won 14 events during the ranking period to Faldo's 10, and when the two had competed in the same tournament, had finished ahead of his rival 19 times to 11. In April 1991, a quirk in the way the rankings treated results from previous years meant that Ian Woosnam, who had never won a major, took the number one spot from Faldo on the eve of the latter's attempt to win the Masters for a third year in succession; as if justifying the ranking system, Woosnam—and not Faldo—won the tournament. Twelve months later, Fred Couples similarly took over the number one ranking shortly before the 1992 Masters, then also went on to make that tournament his first major victory. At the end of 1996 and 1997, Greg Norman had regained the top spot and remained narrowly ahead of first Tom Lehman, and then Tiger Woods and Ernie Els, in the rankings, despite his rivals enjoying major victories in those years while he won none. In 1998, Woods himself finished the year ranked number one, after a season in which Mark O'Meara won two major titles while Woods won just once on the PGA Tour. In March 1999, David Duval briefly became world number one after winning The Players Championship, his sixth victory in a twelve month period that came before his first major victory (which would follow two years later at the Open Championship).

Tiger Woods dominated the number one spot for the following five years, but when Vijay Singh won the PGA Championship in 2004 and with it took the number one ranking, the change highlighted the fact that Woods had not won a major for over two years. Woods responded by winning the very next major, the 2005 Masters, and with it regained the number one spot, which he would then retain for another five years. Following knee surgery in the summer of 2008, Woods missed the entire second half of the year, while Pádraig Harrington won two major championships, to add to the Open Championship he won in 2007. Despite earning no further ranking points during his absence, Woods remained number one on the ranking system in December 2008.

During 2010, there was much debate as to whether Woods' continued retention of the number one ranking (which he held up until the end of October) was justified given his relatively poor form—Woods finished fourth in two major championships in 2010, but failed to finish in the top ten of any other events he entered. During the 2010 season, several of his rivals for the number one spot - including Masters champion Phil Mickelson (who had won four majors since 2004 but had yet to reach number one in the rankings), Lee Westwood (who had yet to win a major but had finished second in both the Masters and Open Championships in 2010), and then Martin Kaymer (who had won the PGA Championship among four worldwide wins)— each missed opportunities to win particular events that would have taken them above Woods, before Westwood finally became world number one on October 31. During 2011, the possession of the number one ranking would be the subject of much discussion among European golf commentators as it passed from Westwood to Kaymer, back to Westwood and then in May to Luke Donald. Donald became the first ever golfer to climb to number one before having won or finished runner-up in a major championship in his career, although he did replace Westwood as number one by defeating him in a playoff for the BMW PGA Championship, the first time it had changed hands in so dramatic a fashion. Donald's consistency through the rest of the 2011 season would keep him in the number one position, despite not gaining his maiden major victory.

Breakdown by nationality

A breakdown of the year-end top-100 by nationality.

A breakdown of the year-end top-100 by eligibility for the major team competitions: Ryder Cup (USA vs. Europe) and Presidents Cup (USA vs. non-European international team).

*Two men tied for 100th place.
Note: The Presidents Cup was founded in 1994.

Rankings archive

Year end world number 1 ranked golfers

Mark H. McCormack Award - Most weeks at number 1 during calendar year

• 1998 Tiger Woods
• 1999 Tiger Woods (2)
• 2000 Tiger Woods (3)
• 2001 Tiger Woods (4)
• 2002 Tiger Woods (5)
• 2003 Tiger Woods (6)
• 2004 Tiger Woods (7)
• 2005 Tiger Woods (8)
• 2006 Tiger Woods (9)
• 2007 Tiger Woods (10)
• 2008 Tiger Woods (11)
• 2009 Tiger Woods (12)
• 2010 Tiger Woods (13)
• 2011 Luke Donald

Year end world top 10 players and ranking point tallies

See History section above for notes on changes to method of calculation.

Single-season total ranking points leaders

Although not recognized by any official award, these golfers have won the most World Ranking Points during the years for which the rankings have been calculated:

• 1984 Tom Watson
• 1985 Bernhard Langer
• 1986 Greg Norman
• 1987 Seve Ballesteros and Ian Woosnam
• 1988 Seve Ballesteros
• 1989 Greg Norman
• 1990 José María Olazábal
• 1991 Seve Ballesteros
• 1992 Nick Faldo
• 1993 Greg Norman
• 1994 Ernie Els
• 1995 Greg Norman
• 1996 Tom Lehman
• 1997 Ernie Els
• 1998 Mark O'Meara
• 1999 Tiger Woods
• 2000 Tiger Woods
• 2001 Tiger Woods
• 2002 Tiger Woods
• 2003 Vijay Singh
• 2004 Vijay Singh
• 2005 Tiger Woods
• 2006 Tiger Woods
• 2007 Tiger Woods
• 2008 Tiger Woods
• 2009 Tiger Woods
• 2010 Lee Westwood
• 2011 Luke Donald

World Money List

Since 1996, the International Federation of PGA Tours has sanctioned a World Money List [13] which is the total official money earned by a player on all member tours. It is computed in United States dollars. The yearly leaders are listed below.

See also

• List of World Number One male golfers
• Women's World Golf Rankings - for female professional golfers
• World Amateur Golf Ranking - for male amateur golfers

Notes and references

External links

• Official World Golf Rankings website (includes archive of weekly ranking lists of Top-200 from 1987 on)