OWGR Folks Knew They Had A Limited Field Problem...

Doug Ferguson explains that the folks controlling the Official World Golf Ranking have an adjustment in place to counteract the excessive impact of limited field events, but it still isn't enough to prevent a massive jump like the one Tiger made last weekend by winning the 18-player Chevron World Challenge.

There will be some slight changes next year for Woods' event at Sherwood, and for the Nedbank Challenge in South Africa, which Lee Westwood won and received 38 ranking points.

The Official World Golf Ranking board, at its annual meeting in July, approved a modification for tournaments that have fewer than 30 players. Those events will no longer get the "home tour" rating component -- essentially bonus points that depend on how many players from the host tour are in the event.

But it won't make that much of a difference.

Comments

[Dude in the Dessert]

gosh.. why such a hizzy fit cuz he jumped in world rankings.. tiger haterade boggles the mind..

[Bret]

Geoff - how many spots SHOULD Tiger have jumped for winning that event?

How many spots would he have jumped if the 2012 rules were in place now?

Does the relative 'bunching' of player rankings in the 30-50 range have any bearing on how many spots Tiger SHOULD have jumped in your mind?

[elf]

@Brett I think Tiger would have jumped to 25 instead of 21 if the new rules have been in place

But if we're going to go with how the owgr should work, where should tiger be ranked if it wasn't for his minimum divisor issues

[elf]

Oh and after listening to Kris Blanks this morning, I still don't care that Tiger received points for winning the event (and neither did he), but agree that Watney, Bradley folks at the bottom shouldn't receive points for just showing up.

So here's my owgr modification: no more than 50% of the field (or nearest number) in any event can receive points. So for chevron only top 9ish would receive points, top 15 at the fed ex champs, but full field events would be unaffected.

[LiquidKaos]

@Elf -

Nice. (the 50% of the field modifier)


-LK

[smails]

Does anybody here really think Tiger, having won last week, isn't one of the 20 best golfers in the world at this moment? With all he has done in his career, and his proving on sun that he can still compete and win?

And while Blanks is prob right, WHO CARES what Bradley, watney et. al get. i.e. only a players manager and his mother care whether he is 35th or 45th.

And I dont care that the 45th place guy gets 10 more starts bacause of it, and the 55th place guy has to play that much batter to break in. the guy on top knocked a guy off to get there, no? i like anything that encourages a guy to try to win.

[Seán O'Nuallain]

If only Boise State golfed... or thank goodness they don't... or something.

[Matt H]

I don't think fields of less than 70 should award any points, or the points should be greatly reduced. Maybe 30% of the points awarded to a full-field event. Even so, watched a lot of golf last weekend, because Tiger was playing well.

Elf asked where Tiger should rank. I looked at his events for 2010-2011 and they aren't bad. There are a handful of top fives in 2010 - 2011. I think he should be ranked about ... 25th. Right around Bill Haas.

If he can play more tournaments I think he will be in the top 15 pretty easily.

[F. X. Flinn]

You have to give points to everyone. Just qualifying to play in a OWGR event marks you as somewhere north of the 1000th best player on the planet. The question of distinguishing who these people are and how they likely rank compared to each other is what the OWGR attempts to address. Looked at from 50,000 feet, the groupings of talent would seem to be top 25, next 25, next 50, next 50, next 100, next 250, last 500. Of course an event with participants from the top 50 should get points; it helps sort out the top group a bit. Similarly the Nedbank. What's the problem? At least some effort has been made to develop a system to perform this useful task, and it continues to be tweaked and the folks responsible appear to be willing to listen to suggestions from those who study the methodology and produce coherent criticisms.