"By clinging to the “home tour” rule officials have unnecessarily narrowed the global playing field and skewed the World Ranking."
Rex Hoggard reminds us why there should be concern about the USGA and other organizations relying so heavily on the Official World Golf Ranking to determine fields for major events. He speaks to currently injured, but always thoughtful PGA Tour player Arron Oberholser, who reels off a solid list of glaring problems with the rankings.
For starters there is the "Home Tour" bonus that increases an event's strength of field, the determining factor for how many points a tournament is awarded come ranking computation time.
The previous year’s money winner is worth eight points, followed by No. 2 (7 points) and so on up to a maximum of 75 points or 75 percent of the total strength-of-field value.
The rule was established during the Nick Faldo-Greg Norman era as a result of skyrocketing purses on the American circuit. It was structured to protect the globe’s other circuits and give marquee players a reason to support the home tour, but has since become pro golf’s version of revenue sharing.
Last October, Bill Haas won the Viking Classic and earned 24 World Ranking points. A world away someone named Michio Matsumura won the Japan Golf Tour’s Tokai Classic and earned 18 points. It’s a snapshot that defies explanation based on the overall strength of the PGA Tour.
By clinging to the “home tour” rule officials have unnecessarily narrowed the global playing field and skewed the World Ranking.
“It’s like spotting a weaker ping-pong player seven points when you’re playing to 21,” Oberholser said.
Hoggard also looks at the decision of Lucas Glover to pass on the AT&T this week in order to get into the WGC Match play. Currently 65th, Glover's priority is preparing for the Masters, not his world ranking, says his agent.
“He does everything with the Masters on his mind. He starts with Houston (Open) the week before and works his way back,” Glover’s manager with Crown Sports Mac Barnhardt said. “But if I was worried about World Ranking points I’d send him overseas, he’d get more points and an appearance fee.”
Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 10:38 PM
Reader Comments (25)
At least the Japanese event had a genuine crowd puller in Ryo Ishikawa.
The significance of appearance fees is even more obscure. A top player raises the quality of the field regardless of how he got there.
Never mind that, as Jay Townsend pointed out, even in the PGA Tour there are ways to provide appearance fees without violating the nominal rule.
As to the complaint about appearance fees, I don't like them but can't see how they distort the Rankings points available. So Tiger playes in Dubai and the event becomes worth more points because of his world ranking? Isn't that how it's supposed to work? The more top players, the higher the points available? In one paragraph Hoggard is complaining that points available don't reflect the strength of the event, in the next that they do.
If Oberholser is that worried about how easy it is in his mind to get ranking points in Europe I'm sure the European Tour would be glad to have him play over here. Then he could properly opine on the relative strength of the tours as well.
Would they want him?
Remember this only matters at the margins (top 30, 64 whatever is being used for that tournament) the guys in the top 10 play a lot of the same events anyways.
And by the way, if he thinks that the level of play is so dramatically better here (including him, I'd presume), then why not go to Europe, get a ton of ranking points and start winning every time you tee it up? Good luck with that.
I, for once, have no problem with the world ranking.
@ Psycho, would you be willing to construct an argument that from 16 to 30 the Euro Tour is as strong as the PGA Tour? I'd be willing to listen.
This from the article: Crown Sports Mac Barnhardt said. “But if I was worried about World Ranking points I’d send him overseas, he’d get more points and an appearance fee.”
Best I can tell what he's saying there is that on average Lucas will finish higher at non-PGA tour events than he would on his home tour, kind of cherry picking if you will. This because OWGR points are overstated at non-USPGAT events vs. USPGAT events. Did I get that right?
you're of course free to play to whatever point total you desire (though it's officially 11) - sounds like you're playing a game of Gnop-Gnipton instead...kinda like Flogton. Maybe if you cross-index your ping-pong handicap and pour some Vaseline on your paddle, you could play on the same table like somebody who plays according to USATT rules :-)
Just joking around, of course - hope you had fun at the DSO show.
Therefore if the OWGR is going to be used going forward for qualification to major tournaments (as I believe it should be) it might not hurt to critique and improve upon it. To me this article was merely a critique of some of the problems with the OWGR, most of which do negatively impact the PGA tour, as those safeguards were put in place when the rankings were instituted to provide a boost to other tours who otherwise were afraid they would not be able to compete.
FISHER - HANSON - DAVIES - HANSEN - HARRINGTON - GREEN - ANDERSSON HED - WILLETT - GOOSEN - KHAN - GALLACHER - HAVRET - LUITEN - JAIDEE - CLARKE
Watson - Villegas - Palmer - Allenby - Johnson - Haas - Day - Fowler - Crane - Kim - Hoffman - McIlroy - Watney - Scott - Ogilvy - Slocum
Give me chapter II of the Hoggard/Oberholser non sequiturs, then we'll talk!
PGA Tour OWGR's for players 16-30:
High = 10
Low = 61
Average = 36
Median = 36
Euro Tour players 16-30:
High = 14
Low = 130
Average = 70
Median = 70
10 of 15 players on the 16-30 list for Europe rank below the lowest ranked player in the 16-30 category for the PGA Tour.
Money List - Player Name - OWGR
FISHER - 33
HANSON - 41
DAVIES - 69
HANSEN - 70
HARRINGTON - 25
GREEN - 59
ANDERSSON HED - 71
WILLETT - 74
GOOSEN - 14
KHAN - 130
GALLACHER - 90
HAVRET - 115
LUITEN - 97
JAIDEE - 65
CLARKE - 100
Watson - 32
Villegas - 37
Palmer - 60
Allenby - 20
Johnson - 24
Haas - 61
Day - 38
Fowler - 28
Crane - 39
Kim - 31
Hoffman - 51
McIlroy - 10
Watney - 36
Scott - 23
Ogilvy - 27
Slocum - 54
So, it is entirely wrong to think about WR points in terms of dollars. Indeed perhaps a reason why many international pro golfers are no longer electing to compete on the PGA Tour is because they are put off by the 'money means everything' mentality !!
"why not go to Europe, get a ton of ranking points and start winning every time you tee it up? Good luck with that."
It seems only one US player-Todd Hamilton is currently doing this. Is he smart or what?
I didn't really have a view on which 16-30 would be stronger. I looked for the names but neither Tour's website made them easy to find. Where did you find them, for future reference? As to the stats, I suspect they just prove how wrong Hoggard/Oberholser are. Yes, after some thought, the US players look a little stronger but bot as dramatically as the numbers suggest. If Hog/Ob were right, surely the Europeans should have inflated World Rankings? Doesn't seem to be the case at all.
@McHacker Ballengee isn't really looking hard at the hard evidence that shows some of his pet theories to be really nothing worth talking about. Just one observation that I made on his blog and he has not commented upon: when Tiger goes to a tournament for an appearance fee he actually makes it harder for the other players to rake in OWGR points, not the opposite as Ryan seems to think. A quick lookup of the point tables shows that.
For the sake of this example I chose the year end figures. Seemed that not enough events have been played on either tour yet to draw any good conclusions about how the money list will shake out. Even with Rory taken out the conclusion wouldn't really change.