Discussion of Changing/Eliminating Official World Ranking?

[bulls9999]

I just noticed this article and thought, well, perhaps time to make OWGR more meaningful .[https://golfchannel.com/news/might-be-time-ditch-official-world-golf-ranking](https://www.golfchannel.com/news/might-be-time-ditch-official-world-golf-ranking "https://golfchannel.com/news/might-be-time-ditch-official-world-golf-ranking").

 

I was playing around with an idea over coffee, so it's a free idea, you get what you pay for.... don't barbeque me over this:

So, how do you do that? Well, I would suggest ditching a 'fixed' points allocation to any golf tournament. It should be determined by the quality of the players in the field..... and that is different for each and every tournament. But the problem also arises, how do you give a 'ranking' to someone if you are going to change the system? Also, the numbers used below are just for illustration, not meant to be 'real'...whatever could be worked out....but they are meant to separate different tier-level tournaments that typically don't attract the top players.

**1) - Rank tournaments by a general multiplier to use on top of points awarded at a tournament(see below).**

* Majors = 4x

* PGA/EuroPGA/WGT (top tier) = 3x

* PGA/EuroPGA (lower tier, played opposite WGC/Majors) = 2x

* Other/International = 1x

 

**2) Accumulate ranking points for the field/players (inverse of their standing) -**

* Field with 5 players ranked 500th, 300th, 200th, 100th, 50th in the world: (500/500 + 500/300 + 500/200 + 500/100 + 500/50 = 1 + 1.67 + 2.5 + 5 + 10 = 20.17 total points available (x tournament rank multiplier

* Field with 5 players ranked 5th, 4th, 3th, 2nd, 1st in the world: (500/5 + 500/4 + 500/3 +500/2 + 500/1 = 100 + 125 + 167 + 250 + 500 = 1142 pst (x tournament multiplier) = pts availble for distribution

**3) Use a standard % distribution of the accumulated ranking points**

* 1st place = 20% of pts

* 2nd place = 10% of pts

* 3rd place = 5% of pts (or something like the current money split %)

 

Result would be that if you are a top player playing in a lower tier tournament, you should be expected to win and pick up few points....however, your presence enhances the players in that tournament by the ranking points you bring. This might also impact the Masters which has the smallest field of the majors (I believe) and also invites a lot of amateurs/winners of smaller regional venues that would carry minimal ranking points to add to the field total.

 

[SirFuego]

I mentioned this in a previous thread about OWGR, but in a past project, I was tasked with ranking things based on multiple, sometimes arbitrarily defined, criteria. I can draw a lot of parallels with that project and the problem of defining a "better" OWGR. The conclusions of that project were this:

1. While there are bad ranking systems, there is no such thing as a "perfect" or even "near perfect" ranking system.

2. Some rankings may be better in certain circumstances than others, but identifying such circumstances is not always trivial.

3. **Any** ranking method **will** (at some point) lead to a debate somewhere in the rankings.

4. The top few rankings are always the most important to get "right".

5. It's impossible to guarantee that the top few rankings will always be without debate.

6. The closer to the "middle" of the rankings you get, the more arbitrary the rankings become. In other words, someone ranked 5th might only move a maximum 2 positions in either direction if the ranking method was changed. But someone ranked 50th might change as many as 15 positions in either direction with those same changes. Someone ranked 600th might move 100 positions...

 

The bottom line is that this is an endless debate because there isn't a correct answer. Even if you ranked players in 15 different ways and averaged each person's ranking, you still run into the same problems because that is basically just re-weighting how important you want certain criteria to influence the rankings.

 

The only real way around it is to abandon the concept of "hard" rankings and provide a probability distribution and/or descriptive statistics (min, max, mean, std dev, etc.) describing the person's actual ranking. Problem is that this is not very intuitive to understand, nor does it enable quick decision-making (which was the primary reason for the project I was working on).

[DFS PFD]

> @bulls9999 said:

> I just noticed this article and thought, well, perhaps time to make OWGR more meaningful .[https://golfchannel.com/news/might-be-time-ditch-official-world-golf-ranking](https://www.golfchannel.com/news/might-be-time-ditch-official-world-golf-ranking "https://golfchannel.com/news/might-be-time-ditch-official-world-golf-ranking").

>

> I was playing around with an idea over coffee, so it's a free idea, you get what you pay for.... don't barbeque me over this:

> So, how do you do that? Well, I would suggest ditching a 'fixed' points allocation to any golf tournament. It should be determined by the quality of the players in the field..... and that is different for each and every tournament. But the problem also arises, how do you give a 'ranking' to someone if you are going to change the system? Also, the numbers used below are just for illustration, not meant to be 'real'...whatever could be worked out....but they are meant to separate different tier-level tournaments that typically don't attract the top players.

> **1) - Rank tournaments by a general multiplier to use on top of points awarded at a tournament(see below).**

> * Majors = 4x

> * PGA/EuroPGA/WGT (top tier) = 3x

> * PGA/EuroPGA (lower tier, played opposite WGC/Majors) = 2x

> * Other/International = 1x

>

> **2) Accumulate ranking points for the field/players (inverse of their standing) -**

> * Field with 5 players ranked 500th, 300th, 200th, 100th, 50th in the world: (500/500 + 500/300 + 500/200 + 500/100 + 500/50 = 1 + 1.67 + 2.5 + 5 + 10 = 20.17 total points available (x tournament rank multiplier

> * Field with 5 players ranked 5th, 4th, 3th, 2nd, 1st in the world: (500/5 + 500/4 + 500/3 +500/2 + 500/1 = 100 + 125 + 167 + 250 + 500 = 1142 pst (x tournament multiplier) = pts availble for distribution

> **3) Use a standard % distribution of the accumulated ranking points**

> * 1st place = 20% of pts

> * 2nd place = 10% of pts

> * 3rd place = 5% of pts (or something like the current money split %)

>

> Result would be that if you are a top player playing in a lower tier tournament, you should be expected to win and pick up few points....however, your presence enhances the players in that tournament by the ranking points you bring. This might also impact the Masters which has the smallest field of the majors (I believe) and also invites a lot of amateurs/winners of smaller regional venues that would carry minimal ranking points to add to the field total.

>

 

Good outline, only major concern would be the PGA Tour should have a greater multiplier than Euro tour (average strength of field is undeniably higher)

[bulls9999]

Yes, but if everyone is ranked (by whatever method is currently being used), then it should be easy to apply those rankings to each tournament field rather than giving the same tournament ranking to most PGA tournaments, WGC, or even Majors. The 600th ranked guy would likely not move 100 positions, even if he won, if he's playing in a tournament with other 300th-600th-world-ranked players. If there's a few higher ranked players, he may move up some....but for him to move up like that, he'd have to do well against a strong field....and if he does well, then he deserves to move up..... I still feel you should get the points available, as anyone else should, but based on the strength of the field which can be vastly different even from one PGA tourney to the next.

[golfandfishing]

The primary issue with the OWGR is that people want emotion and opinion to be factored into a math equation and that’s just not how it works. The OWGR measures a player’s results over 2 years to determine who is #1 and we want the charismatic guy who has played great the last 8 weeks to be #1, all other results be damned.

 

The OWGR is fine, it is just misused in the public realm. The perception of what the ranking means is the primary “problem”.

[Shilgy]

> @SirFuego said:

> I mentioned this in a previous thread about OWGR, but in a past project, I was tasked with ranking things based on multiple, sometimes arbitrarily defined, criteria. I can draw a lot of parallels with that project and the problem of defining a "better" OWGR. The conclusions of that project were this:

> 1. While there are bad ranking systems, there is no such thing as a "perfect" or even "near perfect" ranking system.

> 2. Some rankings may be better in certain circumstances than others, but identifying such circumstances is not always trivial.

> 3. **Any** ranking method **will** (at some point) lead to a debate somewhere in the rankings.

> 4. The top few rankings are always the most important to get "right".

> 5. It's impossible to guarantee that the top few rankings will always be without debate.

> 6. The closer to the "middle" of the rankings you get, the more arbitrary the rankings become. In other words, someone ranked 5th might only move a maximum 2 positions in either direction if the ranking method was changed. But someone ranked 50th might change as many as 15 positions in either direction with those same changes. Someone ranked 600th might move 100 positions...

>

> The bottom line is that this is an endless debate because there isn't a correct answer. Even if you ranked players in 15 different ways and averaged each person's ranking, you still run into the same problems because that is basically just re-weighting how important you want certain criteria to influence the rankings.

 

I would argue your point #4. In golf's OWGR the line drawn at #50 and #64 is more important because that is how players qualify for various major events. AND the rankings in the 50-100 area are more affected by the issue brought up in the article. We often see players on the smaller tours in these numerical ranks that have never appeared on a bigger stage. The very top rankings may be disputed but hold little value other than bragging rights. And the top 10 or so get there by playing in the biggest events and doing well.

[SirFuego]

> @Shilgy said:

> > @SirFuego said:

> > I mentioned this in a previous thread about OWGR, but in a past project, I was tasked with ranking things based on multiple, sometimes arbitrarily defined, criteria. I can draw a lot of parallels with that project and the problem of defining a "better" OWGR. The conclusions of that project were this:

> > 1. While there are bad ranking systems, there is no such thing as a "perfect" or even "near perfect" ranking system.

> > 2. Some rankings may be better in certain circumstances than others, but identifying such circumstances is not always trivial.

> > 3. **Any** ranking method **will** (at some point) lead to a debate somewhere in the rankings.

> > 4. The top few rankings are always the most important to get "right".

> > 5. It's impossible to guarantee that the top few rankings will always be without debate.

> > 6. The closer to the "middle" of the rankings you get, the more arbitrary the rankings become. In other words, someone ranked 5th might only move a maximum 2 positions in either direction if the ranking method was changed. But someone ranked 50th might change as many as 15 positions in either direction with those same changes. Someone ranked 600th might move 100 positions...

> >

> > The bottom line is that this is an endless debate because there isn't a correct answer. Even if you ranked players in 15 different ways and averaged each person's ranking, you still run into the same problems because that is basically just re-weighting how important you want certain criteria to influence the rankings.

>

> I would argue your point #4. In golf's OWGR the line drawn at #50 and #64 is more important because that is how players qualify for various major events. AND the rankings in the 50-100 area are more affected by the issue brought up in the article. We often see players on the smaller tours in these numerical ranks that have never appeared on a bigger stage. The very top rankings may be disputed but hold little value other than bragging rights. And the top 10 or so get there by playing in the biggest events and doing well.

 

I understand your point. The focus of my project was to enable quick decision-making when faced with tens or hundreds of alternatives. So the user would only be looking at the top few anyways. This is one case where the OWGR deviates from that.

 

However, due to #6 you have even less of a chance of getting a line drawn in the middle "right". So if you focus on getting the top few correct, you will usually have a pretty good scheme to rank the middle as well.

The reason for that is that the deeper you get into the list, there are more "things" (players) with conflicting criteria that drive their rankings up or down (is a T20 place finish in a weak event better or worse than a T30 finish in a more prestigious event?). If you focus on getting the line drawn between 50 and/or 64 correct, you'll need a really complex system that would very likely breakdown elsewhere in the rankings. It might not break down today, but it might be terrible 4 months from now because the input data will be different and may conflict in different ways.

 

To make things more difficult, you have a large number of players that have never competed against other players. Players on the Asian Tour might have never played a PGA Tour event. The Asian Tour players are going to be in the "middle" of the rankings, but since there is no real comparative data on how they would perform on a bigger stage, then ANYTHING you come up with is arbitrary at best.

 

Look at college football, there are 4 teams that make the playoffs. Some years there are debates as to whether the 5th team should have made the playoffs over the 4th team. But there is almost never a debate about whether the #1 team should have been ranked in the top 4.

[Hawkeye77]

Tour players whine, system gets reviewed, system will be tweaked, Tour players will whine.

Probably below what is served at their next buffet my list of golf interest.

[bscinstnct]

I like the PGA Tour Money Per Event list. The bigger events pay more and have the best fields in general.

 

https://www.pgatour.com/stats/stat.154.html

[bulls9999]

I agree. And my points for Tournament Multiplier or any of the other categories were just off the top of my head, not meant to actually be used....but I was offering a way that each tournament should carry a 'dynamic rating' after the field is set, not automatically be given the same statis across the board.... how often do you hear that 'PGA tournament XYZ field only has 4 of the top 20 in the world playing in it?' while others might have a strong top-heavy load? There should be a way to distinguish those in regard to how much the winner gets in points (even if the money is the same). Use the money to attract the field, which can differ based on sponsor, but make the points as exacting as possible to reflect the strength of the field and dish out ranking points in respect to that. Anyway, fixed this issue, now off to solve other world problems :smiley: .

 

> @"DFS PFD" said:

> > @bulls9999 said:

> > I just noticed this article and thought, well, perhaps time to make OWGR more meaningful .[https://golfchannel.com/news/might-be-time-ditch-official-world-golf-ranking](https://www.golfchannel.com/news/might-be-time-ditch-official-world-golf-ranking "https://golfchannel.com/news/might-be-time-ditch-official-world-golf-ranking").

> >

> > I was playing around with an idea over coffee, so it's a free idea, you get what you pay for.... don't barbeque me over this:

> > So, how do you do that? Well, I would suggest ditching a 'fixed' points allocation to any golf tournament. It should be determined by the quality of the players in the field..... and that is different for each and every tournament. But the problem also arises, how do you give a 'ranking' to someone if you are going to change the system? Also, the numbers used below are just for illustration, not meant to be 'real'...whatever could be worked out....but they are meant to separate different tier-level tournaments that typically don't attract the top players.

> > **1) - Rank tournaments by a general multiplier to use on top of points awarded at a tournament(see below).**

> > * Majors = 4x

> > * PGA/EuroPGA/WGT (top tier) = 3x

> > * PGA/EuroPGA (lower tier, played opposite WGC/Majors) = 2x

> > * Other/International = 1x

> >

> > **2) Accumulate ranking points for the field/players (inverse of their standing) -**

> > * Field with 5 players ranked 500th, 300th, 200th, 100th, 50th in the world: (500/500 + 500/300 + 500/200 + 500/100 + 500/50 = 1 + 1.67 + 2.5 + 5 + 10 = 20.17 total points available (x tournament rank multiplier

> > * Field with 5 players ranked 5th, 4th, 3th, 2nd, 1st in the world: (500/5 + 500/4 + 500/3 +500/2 + 500/1 = 100 + 125 + 167 + 250 + 500 = 1142 pst (x tournament multiplier) = pts availble for distribution

> > **3) Use a standard % distribution of the accumulated ranking points**

> > * 1st place = 20% of pts

> > * 2nd place = 10% of pts

> > * 3rd place = 5% of pts (or something like the current money split %)

> >

> > Result would be that if you are a top player playing in a lower tier tournament, you should be expected to win and pick up few points....however, your presence enhances the players in that tournament by the ranking points you bring. This might also impact the Masters which has the smallest field of the majors (I believe) and also invites a lot of amateurs/winners of smaller regional venues that would carry minimal ranking points to add to the field total.

> >

>

> Good outline, only major concern would be the PGA Tour should have a greater multiplier than Euro tour (average strength of field is undeniably higher)

 

 

[Darth Putter]

> @bscinstnct said:

> I like the PGA Tour Money Per Event list. The bigger events pay more and have the best fields in general.

>

> https://www.pgatour.com/stats/stat.154.html

 

I really like the 2009 list. :D

[Vindog]

I'm not in favor of ditching it altogether. If they feel like some tours are disproportionately rated then I wouldn't be opposed to tweaking that, either, but this could be addressed in the home tour rating part of the current system.

 

However I reject the articles attempt to make the the fans not caring relevant. Nothing about the fans understanding of math should be taken into account, in my opinion.

[Golfnutgalen]

> @"Darth Putter" said:

> > @bscinstnct said:

> > I like the PGA Tour Money Per Event list. The bigger events pay more and have the best fields in general.

> >

> > https://www.pgatour.com/stats/stat.154.html

>

> I really like the 2009 list. :D

Wow. The last time anyone was over $500,000 (excluding this year of course, with Rory being just over so far) was 2013 Tiger Woods at $534,589 per start. And that wasn't even close to his best year. He led the category 12 times from 1997-2013.

[Golfjack]

Yeah weaker tours shouldn't get as much weighting, but then they also want to grow the international game. It's harder to grow it when you keep making them unimportant. Also you'd see some web.com guys maybe even in the top 100? I'm not sure how that would work. Would the Web tour be stronger ranked than the Euro tour? Seems to be they are maybe about equal in skill and talent. Prize money on the web could be decent but nowhere close to the Euro tour money. I think a lot of US player stay on Web rather than go trek around the world for the Euro tour. Then again there are some web guys who probably wouldn't make it on the Euro tour.

[cdnglf]

> @Golfjack said:

> Yeah weaker tours shouldn't get as much weighting, but then they also want to grow the international game. It's harder to grow it when you keep making them unimportant. Also you'd see some web.com guys maybe even in the top 100? I'm not sure how that would work. Would the Web tour be stronger ranked than the Euro tour? Seems to be they are maybe about equal in skill and talent. Prize money on the web could be decent but nowhere close to the Euro tour money. I think a lot of US player stay on Web rather than go trek around the world for the Euro tour. Then again there are some web guys who probably wouldn't make it on the Euro tour.

 

Maybe the US should send the web.com all-stars to the Ryder.

[Vardon Grip]

As long as I can still rack up points from the Men's monthly tournament on Saturdays I'm in full support.

[PZero]

Fedex would love that.

[anth]

Pick a start date, say January 1 2020.

 

Then just run with a global money list converted to US dollars.

[QEight]

Why would this be any better than we now have? OWGR has max/min points for different Tours/tournaments and it has Strength of Field.

[Dave230]

You get this every so often, but am yet to see a better thought out system than the current one. It's like if Tiger is number 1 by .5 points, the system is great but if *insert player without several majors* is the system is flawed. As was previously mentioned, the importance for the world rankings come from the top 50 and getting into majors and World Golf Championships.

 

The rankings are already weighted towards majors and big tournaments. If you weight them any more, you could get a Todd Hamilton type player having the week of his life and being immediately put into the top 10 of the world ahead of players that are beating him every week. The two-year period of ranking is perfect for me, always thought the one-year cycle for tennis was a bit harsh where someone has a few injuries and a few bad tournaments and all of a sudden they're out of the top 100 of the world. Spieth would be 200 in the world or something in that case, but in golf he's 36 because he's still a great player, just not showing it right now. Any longer than two years and you'd come into problems.

[iteachgolf]

> @Golfjack said:

> Yeah weaker tours shouldn't get as much weighting, but then they also want to grow the international game. It's harder to grow it when you keep making them unimportant. Also you'd see some web.com guys maybe even in the top 100? I'm not sure how that would work. Would the Web tour be stronger ranked than the Euro tour? Seems to be they are maybe about equal in skill and talent. Prize money on the web could be decent but nowhere close to the Euro tour money. I think a lot of US player stay on Web rather than go trek around the world for the Euro tour. Then again there are some web guys who probably wouldn't make it on the Euro tour.

 

Web and Euro Tour aren’t close to equal in talent or skill. If the Web guys could go to Europe and succeed, they would because the money isn’t even close.

[Roadking2003]

> @SirFuego said:

> I mentioned this in a previous thread about OWGR, but in a past project, I was tasked with ranking things based on multiple, sometimes arbitrarily defined, criteria. I can draw a lot of parallels with that project and the problem of defining a "better" OWGR. The conclusions of that project were this:

> 1. While there are bad ranking systems, there is no such thing as a "perfect" or even "near perfect" ranking system.

There is no such thing as a good or bad ranking system.

The first thing you have to decide is "why are you ranking players"? That answer will dictate the timeframe. Should your ranking be over the past month? quarter? Year? two years? five years?

There is no timeframe that is inherently good or bad. Using the past quarter vs the past two years is neither better nor worse.

Once you have established your timeframe, then you can debate the measurement criteria.

My first question is "why would you give more points for majors?" If I win a tournament with a higher strength of field than a major, then shouldn't I get more points?

So why wouldn't you use a players performance against all other players regardless of which tour it's on and what event is being played?

 

 

[Roadking2003]

I like the way Golfstat does college player rankings. Everything is about who you beat, nothing about where you played.

 

http://www.golfstat.com/index.cfm?event=public.static&pg=mPlayerRankNCAAA

[bulls9999]

Similar to what I said initially, base world ranking on the strength of field, not a fixed point system across all PGA top tier tournaments regardless of the field. Maybe take my 'tournament multiplier' factor out completely.... not needed if you go by individual ranking of players in the field.

 

> @Roadking2003 said:

> I like the way Golfstat does college player rankings. Everything is about who you beat, nothing about where you played.

>

> http://www.golfstat.com/index.cfm?event=public.static&pg=mPlayerRankNCAAA

 

 

[Ferguson]

> @golfandfishing said:

> The primary issue with the OWGR is that people want emotion and opinion to be factored into a math equation and that’s just not how it works. The OWGR measures a player’s results over 2 years to determine who is #1 and we want the charismatic guy who has played great the last 8 weeks to be #1, all other results be damned.

>

> The OWGR is fine, it is just misused in the public realm. The perception of what the ranking means is the primary “problem”.

 

Not just the primary problem - the "only" problem.

[Darth Putter]

> @Roadking2003 said:

> > @SirFuego said:

> > I mentioned this in a previous thread about OWGR, but in a past project, I was tasked with ranking things based on multiple, sometimes arbitrarily defined, criteria. I can draw a lot of parallels with that project and the problem of defining a "better" OWGR. The conclusions of that project were this:

> > 1. While there are bad ranking systems, there is no such thing as a "perfect" or even "near perfect" ranking system.

> There is no such thing as a good or bad ranking system.

> The first thing you have to decide is "why are you ranking players"? That answer will dictate the timeframe. Should your ranking be over the past month? quarter? Year? two years? five years?

> There is no timeframe that is inherently good or bad. Using the past quarter vs the past two years is neither better nor worse.

> Once you have established your timeframe, then you can debate the measurement criteria.

> My first question is "why would you give more points for majors?" If I win a tournament with a higher strength of field than a major, then shouldn't I get more points?

> So why wouldn't you use a players performance against all other players regardless of which tour it's on and what event is being played?

>

>

 

One other variable you didn't mention, the number of golfers that count toward the strength of field. Right now it is 200. If you added all the golfers in the world ranked #201-320 to the HERO World Challenge it wouldn't change the ranking any more than adding 120 high schoolers. To get a SoF of a perfect 1000, the tournament would need all top 200 golfers to play. If they set it at a number between 70-100 the SoF for the majors, TPC, WGCs and FedEx playoffs would all probably be the same. Fun fact, a foursome of Justin Rose, Brooks Koepka, Tiger Woods and Keegan Bradley adds as much to the SoF of a tournament as much as all the golfers ranked 101-200.

 

Of course, the other problem is that the OWGR needs to be agreed to by all parties. Some tours might want to get rid of the Home Rating such as the Web.com and European Challengers Tours, but others like the Japan and Asian Tours would insist on keeping it. Any move made to lower the Minimum Points Levels of any tours that are not the PGA Tour will certainly run into a brick wall.

 

 

 

 

[SNIPERBBB]

> @golfandfishing said:

> The primary issue with the OWGR is that people want emotion and opinion to be factored into a math equation and that’s just not how it works. The OWGR measures a player’s results over 2 years to determine who is #1 and we want the charismatic guy who has played great the last 8 weeks to be #1, all other results be damned.

>

> The OWGR is fine, it is just misused in the public realm. The perception of what the ranking means is the primary “problem”.

 

To paraphrase...


 

[cdnglf]

> @"Darth Putter" said:

> > @Roadking2003 said:

> > > @SirFuego said:

> > > I mentioned this in a previous thread about OWGR, but in a past project, I was tasked with ranking things based on multiple, sometimes arbitrarily defined, criteria. I can draw a lot of parallels with that project and the problem of defining a "better" OWGR. The conclusions of that project were this:

> > > 1. While there are bad ranking systems, there is no such thing as a "perfect" or even "near perfect" ranking system.

> > There is no such thing as a good or bad ranking system.

> > The first thing you have to decide is "why are you ranking players"? That answer will dictate the timeframe. Should your ranking be over the past month? quarter? Year? two years? five years?

> > There is no timeframe that is inherently good or bad. Using the past quarter vs the past two years is neither better nor worse.

> > Once you have established your timeframe, then you can debate the measurement criteria.

> > My first question is "why would you give more points for majors?" If I win a tournament with a higher strength of field than a major, then shouldn't I get more points?

> > So why wouldn't you use a players performance against all other players regardless of which tour it's on and what event is being played?

> >

> >

>

> One other variable you didn't mention, the number of golfers that count toward the strength of field. Right now it is 200. If you added all the golfers in the world ranked #201-320 to the HERO World Challenge it wouldn't change the ranking any more than adding 120 high schoolers. To get a SoF of a perfect 1000, the tournament would need all top 200 golfers to play. If they set it at a number between 70-100 the SoF for the majors, TPC, WGCs and FedEx playoffs would all probably be the same. Fun fact, a foursome of Justin Rose, Brooks Koepka, Tiger Woods and Keegan Bradley adds as much to the SoF of a tournament as much as all the golfers ranked 101-200.

>

> Of course, the other problem is that the OWGR needs to be agreed to by all parties. Some tours might want to get rid of the Home Rating such as the Web.com and European Challengers Tours, but others like the Japan and Asian Tours would insist on keeping it. Any move made to lower the Minimum Points Levels of any tours that are not the PGA Tour will certainly run into a brick wall.

>

>

>

>

 

All excellent points. I think the top 200 cutoff is one of the weaknesses of the current system. A lot of lesser events end up looking very similar with a SoF close to zero, and end up relying on minimum event points instead. Would be interesting to see a system that included weights for the top 1000.

[SNIPERBBB]

It would have to go past 200 at least, isn't the pga priority list about 200 players long? Then you have the euro too and others

[Darth Putter]

> @cdnglf said:

> > @"Darth Putter" said:

> > > @Roadking2003 said:

> > > > @SirFuego said:

> > > > I mentioned this in a previous thread about OWGR, but in a past project, I was tasked with ranking things based on multiple, sometimes arbitrarily defined, criteria. I can draw a lot of parallels with that project and the problem of defining a "better" OWGR. The conclusions of that project were this:

> > > > 1. While there are bad ranking systems, there is no such thing as a "perfect" or even "near perfect" ranking system.

> > > There is no such thing as a good or bad ranking system.

> > > The first thing you have to decide is "why are you ranking players"? That answer will dictate the timeframe. Should your ranking be over the past month? quarter? Year? two years? five years?

> > > There is no timeframe that is inherently good or bad. Using the past quarter vs the past two years is neither better nor worse.

> > > Once you have established your timeframe, then you can debate the measurement criteria.

> > > My first question is "why would you give more points for majors?" If I win a tournament with a higher strength of field than a major, then shouldn't I get more points?

> > > So why wouldn't you use a players performance against all other players regardless of which tour it's on and what event is being played?

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> > One other variable you didn't mention, the number of golfers that count toward the strength of field. Right now it is 200. If you added all the golfers in the world ranked #201-320 to the HERO World Challenge it wouldn't change the ranking any more than adding 120 high schoolers. To get a SoF of a perfect 1000, the tournament would need all top 200 golfers to play. If they set it at a number between 70-100 the SoF for the majors, TPC, WGCs and FedEx playoffs would all probably be the same. Fun fact, a foursome of Justin Rose, Brooks Koepka, Tiger Woods and Keegan Bradley adds as much to the SoF of a tournament as much as all the golfers ranked 101-200.

> >

> > Of course, the other problem is that the OWGR needs to be agreed to by all parties. Some tours might want to get rid of the Home Rating such as the Web.com and European Challengers Tours, but others like the Japan and Asian Tours would insist on keeping it. Any move made to lower the Minimum Points Levels of any tours that are not the PGA Tour will certainly run into a brick wall.

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> All excellent points. I think the top 200 cutoff is one of the weaknesses of the current system. A lot of lesser events end up looking very similar with a SoF close to zero, and end up relying on minimum event points instead. Would be interesting to see a system that included weights for the top 1000.

 

The women's ranking uses the top 500.

 

A massive increase in world rating would combat the home rating problem.

 

If they used a 1000 golfers, a few tours could get rid of the minimum events points totals. If the field for the Shot Clock Masters or Puntacna is that bad, let the cards fall where they may.