"Let the transcontinental tour ragging begin anew"

Steve Elling analyzes and posts the top 30 events of 2011 based on appearances by world top 200 players and the PGA Tour stomps on the European Tour 7&6.

1. PGA Championship 
Tour: Both. Top 200: 124. Top 15: 15.
2. Players Championship 
Tour: PGA. Top 200: 114. Top 15: 13.
3. British Open 
Tour: Both. Top 200: 113. Top 15: 15.
4. The Barclays 
Tour: PGA. Top 200: 104. Top 15: 11.
5. Deutsche Bank 
Tour: PGA. Top 200: 94. Top 15: 12.
6. U.S. Open 
Tour: Both. Top 200: 91. Top 15: 14.
7. Arnold Palmer Invitational 
Tour: PGA. Top 200: 85. Top 15: 7.
8. Memorial Tournament 
Tour: PGA. Top 200: 84. Top 15: 8.
9. Masters 
Tour: Both. Top 200: 82. Top 15: 15.
9. Northern Trust/L.A. 
Tour: PGA. Top 200: 82. Top 15: 8.

Comments

[Moi]

I bet that US dominance were still bigger some years a go. From the start of the R2D the stretch started to become shorter and shorter and now European Tour has very attractive tournaments to watch.........and the #1 playing quite often over there.
PS: Geoff, e-mail Steve and tell him that, after 9 it comes number 10.

[KCMG]

It's T-9. He is using the top 200 for ranking (as do the events).

Abu Dhabi has certainly come a long way in a short time in top 15 entrants.

[Moi]

@KCMG You're right; it's a tie, and that's part of what I don't understand. The author is using only top-200 from the ranking altough to me it's not the same a Players (114 top-200 but only 13 top-15) than a British Open (113 top-200 but 15 top-15) or the WGC Bridgestone (74 top-200 and 15 top-15) against Honda Classic (74 top-200 and 7 top-15). The same way, I think, and possibily so does the OWGR, it's not the same a tournament with players from #99 to #200 (101 top-200 but 0 top-15) than a tournament with players from #1 to #100 (100 top-200 and 15 top-15). Appart from this, top-15 should be used, al least, to break a tie. As a university teacher told me some years ago, with numbers you can prove anything you want, even if it's false.

[rb]

Looks like a fairly even spread...am I missing something?

[smails]

I'll say it--top 200 is a meaningless way to grade field quality--tournaments use it only because it makes them look good.

#200 is katsumasa miyamoto, 198 is Johnson Wagner and 199 is Brett Rumford.

Does anyone care, apart from their mothers and people they looped for while going through school, where these people play? Anybody bought a ticket bacause Brett Rumford was playing?

Top 15 is relevant. Top 50 might be relevant top 200, for tournaments with 144-156 spots, is not.

#50 is Ben Crane, #49 is jiminez

[Steve Elling]

Moi,

Breaking ties?

Then somebody would have nit-picked at the methodology I used for that, too.

I had to list them according to SOME reasonable standard. Top 200 seemed as fair as any as it relates to gauging depth. The top 15 was included to indicate how many of the big boys showed up.

There is nothing "false" about these numbers. There is no interpretation. No spin. These are OWGR numbers from a global spreadsheet, in fact. Chart includes both top 15 and top 200 in these fields.

They had to be listed according to one of those metrics, and since depth isn't measured by 15 players, I went with the top-200 data. You wanna rank them by the top 15, feel free -- the numbers are there.

If you say a EuroTour event is better because it has 5 of the top 15 and little in the middle, versus a PGA TOur event that might have 70 of the top 200, so be it. Argue away.

Steve E.

[KCMG]

So Abu Dhabi trumps the Arnold Palmer by this argument (with which I don't entirely disagree, in terms of public interest in the various events). Seems to me all Elling was trying to codify was the actual, as opposed to the perceived, "depth" of certain fields, given that the ranking points available are drawn only from the entrants who start in the top 200. Clearly, if a lot more of them are in the top 15, top 20, top 25 in any given event, it gets even more points. But large fields with a pretty good scattering are going to accumulate points, hence some of these virtually yawnsome top ten events leading over the limited field WGCs with all of or close to 15/15.

[Kevin Olsen]

Elling: There is nothing "false" about these numbers.

Moi didn't say that the numbers were false. His point is that false conclusions can be drawn using (valid) numbers.

Elling: There is no interpretation.

The interpretation occurs with the use of OWGR-200 and OWGR-15 rather than OWGR-100 and OWGR-30, for instance.

[elf]

Clearly the #1 player in the world is worth more than #200, but the OWGR gives a ton of weight to having one of the top few players, and virtually no weight to depth. The question is, it harder to beat the #1 player in the world or 10 players from the top 50? top 100? So in order to determine true field strength you need some weighting to take into account both top players and depth. In the interest of simplicity of calculations I'd be curious to see fields ranking by something like this

# of top 10 players * 2
11-25 * 1.75
26-50 * 1.5
51-100 * 1
101-200 *.75

[Aunt Blabbie]

One thing stands out. The majors are still the majors.

[LiquidKaos]

Arnie beats Jack! Sweet ... that'll be sure to chap the Bear.


-LK

[BrianS]

If I was ranking it, I think Elf's criteria looks pretty good to me. 100-200 are really just fluff, but they are players that need to be beaten, whereas small field events such as the Chevron or the Tour Championship are high on the top guys, they are easier to win with the small fields. So who is going to re-rate based on Elf's method ?

[Hawkeye]

Interesting list, but if a measring stick says that the French Open has a stronger field than the WGC Matchplay or Doral, then it's probably wise to use a different stick.

[Jay Townsend]

Steve

I think you have to much time on your hands

Jay

[Del the Funk]

LK, Arnie's event has been way up in the rankings for 20 years. I doubt Muirfield was ever even close during that span.

And the East Lake Pillow Fight? Was it DFL of all the fields?

[Del the Funk]

Well, I guess it was in fact close this year! But my remembrance is that Bay HIll generally outpaced Muirfield pretty handily,

[digsouth]

Jay--

Good one, and you sort of took the words off my fingertips.

Steve--

I really enjoy your writing and POV, but this numbers deal is silly season filler, no?

[elf]

Hey, some of us find fun with numbers interesting.

@BrianS you' need the spreadsheet to calculate it

[Tim in Hoylake]

Since Barclays and Dodgy Bank are both European banks, doesn't that shift the balance somewhat?

[Tim in Hoylake]

And since the British OPen comes in 3rd in this ranking, surely the 'score' shouldn't be 7 and 6 but perhaps 2 up.

[KCMG]

On the other hand, it probably weights Florida events unfairly highly, as so many of the idle types (you know, the ones not playing in Malaysia or Shanghai this week, and never seen in Australia, Asia or even Canada) live there. Proximity is not necessarily next to golf-godliness.

The French Open rated as well as it did because of the rising ranks of so many European Tour players.

[Moi]

To @Steve Elling. I probably didn't use the proper words if you did understand that I was saying the article is false. If this is the case, I apologise for it. As @Kevin Olsen points, I was only trying to say that "false conclusions can be drawn using (valid) numbers" and it doesn't mean PGA Tour it's not stronger than R2D.
Maybe you were trying to use an easy system in order to make readers understand it easily, but I think the whole thing is more complex and not so easy to understand.