Official World Golf Rankings

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The Official World Golf Rankings are a system for rating the performance level of professional golfers. They were introduced in 1986 and are endorsed by the four Major Championships and the six professional tours which make up the International Federation of PGA Tours, which are the PGA TOUR, the European Tour, the Asian Tour, the PGA Tour of Australasia, the Japan Golf Tour, and the Sunshine Tour. Points are also awarded for high finishes on the Canadian Tour, Nationwide Tour and Challenge Tour.

1 History
2 Calculation of the rankings
3 Importance of the rankings
4 Current Rankings
5 Number 1 ranked golfers
6 Rankings archive
7 References
8 See also
9 External links

[edit] History

The intiative for the creation of the Official World Golf Rankings 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 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 thirty-one Americans in the top fifty (compared with twenty at the end of 2005).

Initially the rankings were calculated over a three year period, but this was reduced to two in 1995. A few years after that the tapering system was changed so that instead of one half of the points for each result being deducted after a year and the other half after two years, one eighth is deducted every thirteen weeks. 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.

Twelve players have been World No.1. Seve Ballesteros took over from Bernhard Langer and vied with Greg Norman for the No.1 spot, then Nick Faldo took over as Greg Norman’s rival. Ian Woosnam and Fred Couples held the position through 1991 and 1992 before Nick Faldo took over again through to 1994, when Nick Price’s career year took him to No.1. After a single week at No.1 by Tom Lehman, Tiger Woods dominated the position from 1997 to 2005 with brief interruptions from Ernie Els and David Duval. In September 2004 Vijay Singh became the twelfth World No.1, and he and Woods swapped the position several times in 2005, but Woods eventually opened a wide lead. Woods holds the longest consecutive streak as No. 1 at 264 weeks.

At the end of 2005 the top one hundred players were drawn from the following countries:

41: United States
16: United Kingdom (England 11; Northern Ireland 2; Wales 2; Scotland 1)
12: Australia
5: Japan, South Africa
3: Spain, Sweden
2: Canada, France, Republic of Ireland, South Korea, New Zealand
1: Argentina, Denmark, Fiji, Germany, Paraguay

There were 28 Europeans and 31 players eligible for the Presidents Cup International Team.

[edit] Calculation of the rankings

Points are awarded on the basis of final positions in official money events on the qualifying tours. For each tour, a minimum number of points are available for each event. The number of points available depends on the current rankings (top 200) of the participating golfers and the ranking of the top 30 golfers entered from the "home tour". In addition, most tours have a "premier event" that is guaranteed a much higher minimum point level.

Tour	Minimum Points	Premier Event	Minimum Points
PGA Tour	24	The Players Championship <ref>The Players Championship is the premier event that is sanctioned only by the PGA Tour. The four major championships are co-sanctioned by the PGA Tour and have higher points allocations than The Players Championship.</ref>	80
European Tour	24	BMW Championship <ref>The BMW Championship (which is historically the British PGA Championship) is the leading event that is sanctioned by the European Tour only. The four major championships and the three individual World Golf Championships events are co-sanctioned by the European Tour and have higher ranking point allocations than the BMW Championship.</ref>	64
Japan Golf Tour	16	Japan Open <ref>The Japan Open is the leading event that is sanctioned by the Japanese Tour only. The four major championships and the three individual World Golf Championships events are co-sanctioned by the Japan Golf Tour and have higher ranking point allocations than the Japan Open</ref>	32
PGA Tour of Australasia	16	Australian Open	32
Asian Tour	14	Volvo Masters of Asia <ref>The Volvo Masters of Asia is the Asian Tour championship and is designated as the tour's premier event for ranking purposes, but the tour's richest sole sanctioned event, the Singapore Open, and several events that are co-sanctioned with the European Tour, offer more ranking points based on strength of field co-efficient.</ref>	20
Sunshine Tour	12	South African Open	32
Nationwide Tour	14	Nationwide Tour Championship	20
Challenge Tour	12	n/a	n/a
Canadian Tour	6	n/a	n/a

The four major tournaments automatically receive the maximum possible rating, with 100 points allocated to the winner. The winners of the three individual events in the World Golf Championships series generally receive 70 to 78 points. The winner of most PGA Tour events gains a number of points in the range from the 24 to 70s, and most European Tour events offer a points tally between 24 and 50s for the winner. (Note: The minimum points for the Sunshine Tour will be raised to 14 beginning in 2007.)

Each player's personal ranking is calculated from the ranking points he has obtained over the previous two years. Firstly, his scores from all the tournaments he has played in are scaled down over a two year period, with one eighth of the points awarded for each tournament deducted every thirteen weeks in order to give priority to recent form. The player's adjusted scores are then totalled, and this total is divided by the number of ranking tournaments in which he has participated over the previous two years, subject to a minimum denominator of 40 tournaments. 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. Players with full membership of one of the larger tours (that is, almost all players in the top few hundred in the rankings) usually play between 20 and 35 ranking tournaments each year, unless they are injured. New rankings are released every Monday.

[edit] 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 (The Masters, U.S. Open, The Open Championship), and effectively assures entry into the fourth (PGA Championship). 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.

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.

[edit] Current Rankings

These are the current top 10 ranked golfers and their point tallies as of November 27, 2006.

Rank	Player	Country	Points
1	Tiger Woods	Image:Flag of the United States.svg United States	21.46
2	Jim Furyk	Image:Flag of the United States.svg United States	8.83
3	Phil Mickelson	Image:Flag of the United States.svg United States	7.76
4	Adam Scott	Image:Flag of Australia.svg Australia	7.42
5	Retief Goosen	Image:Flag of South Africa.svg South Africa	6.20
6	Vijay Singh	Image:Flag of Fiji.svg Fiji	6.16
7	Ernie Els	Image:Flag of South Africa.svg South Africa	5.87
8	Padraig Harrington	Image:Flag of Ireland.svg Ireland	5.71
9	Luke Donald	Image:Flag of England (bordered).svg England	5.69
10	Sergio García	Image:Flag of Spain.svg Spain	5.54

Tiger Woods achieved the largest ever lead of 19.40 average points in the rankings on May 20, 2001. His lead was over then World Number Two Phil Mickelson following his victory at the Deutsche Bank - SAP Open TPC of Europe.

Tiger Woods also set the record for the highest Points Average on June 3, 2001 when he ended the week with an average of 32.44 (1459.64 points averaged over 45 events).

Ernie Els holds the record for most weeks in the World Top 10, with 648. He is followed by Greg Norman (646 weeks) and Tiger Woods (503 weeks).

[edit] Number 1 ranked golfers

These are the golfers who have topped the rankings, in order of the number of weeks they have spent at Number 1 up to November 27, 2006, at which date Tiger Woods was World Number 1. His current spell at the top of the rankings is his tenth. It began on June 12, 2005 when he regained first place from Vijay Singh.

The "Order" column indicates the sequence in which the players first reached number 1. The "Majors" column shows the number of major championships each player has won through the 2006 PGA Championship.

Weeks	Player	Country	Order	Majors
419	Tiger Woods	Image:Flag of the United States.svg United States	9	12
331	Greg Norman	Image:Flag of Australia.svg Australia	3	2
98	Nick Faldo	Image:Flag of England (bordered).svg England	4	6
61	Seve Ballesteros	Image:Flag of Spain.svg Spain	2	5
50	Ian Woosnam	Image:Flag of Wales (bordered).svg Wales	5	1
43	Nick Price	Image:Flag of Zimbabwe.svg Zimbabwe	7	3
32	Vijay Singh	Image:Flag of Fiji.svg Fiji	12	3
16	Fred Couples	Image:Flag of the United States.svg United States	6	1
15	David Duval	Image:Flag of the United States.svg United States	11	1
9	Ernie Els	Image:Flag of South Africa.svg South Africa	10	3
3	Bernhard Langer	Image:Flag of Germany.svg Germany	1	2
1	Tom Lehman	Image:Flag of the United States.svg United States	8	1

Of these players Bernard Langer and Seve Ballesteros would be most likely to gain additional weeks at number 1 if the rankings were backdated to before 1986. Greg Norman might possibly also do so.

Source for data: "Number 1 Watch" on the official site. Accessed 11/27/2006.

[edit] Rankings archive

Year end world number 1 ranked golfers

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

Year end world top 10 players and ranking point tallies
Note that changes in the calculation method in 1996 produced a general reduction in ratings.

Rank	2005		2004		2003
1	Tiger Woods	17.16	Vijay Singh	13.46	Tiger Woods	14.58
2	Vijay Singh	9.78	Tiger Woods	11.95	Vijay Singh	9.77
3	Phil Mickelson	8.14	Ernie Els	11.77	Ernie Els	8.41
4	Retief Goosen	8.10	Retief Goosen	8.01	Davis Love III	7.53
5	Ernie Els	8.03	Phil Mickelson	7.35	Jim Furyk	6.81
6	Sergio García	7.23	Mike Weir	6.20	Mike Weir	6.54
7	Jim Furyk	5.80	Davis Love III	6.11	Retief Goosen	5.92
8	Colin Montgomerie	4.78	Padraig Harrington	6.05	Padraig Harrington	5.28
9	Adam Scott	4.68	Sergio García	5.71	David Toms	5.09
10	Chris DiMarco	4.58	Stewart Cink	5.19	Kenny Perry	5.08

Rank	2002		2001		2000[1]
1	Tiger Woods	15.72	Tiger Woods	15.67	Tiger Woods	29.40
2	Phil Mickelson	7.72	Phil Mickelson	9.16	Ernie Els	11.65
3	Ernie Els	6.84	David Duval	7.98	David Duval	11.20
4	Sergio García	6.19	Ernie Els	6.99	Phil Mickelson	11.07
5	Retief Goosen	6.16	Davis Love III	6.02	Lee Westwood	9.46
6	David Toms	6.02	Sergio García	5.86	Colin Montgomerie	8.34
7	Padraig Harrington	5.63	David Toms	5.83	Davis Love III	7.88
8	Vijay Singh	5.53	Vijay Singh	5.60	Hal Sutton	7.71
9	Davis Love III	4.82	Darren Clarke	5.03	Vijay Singh	7.17
10	Colin Montgomerie	4.39	Retief Goosen	4.95	Tom Lehman	7.10

Rank	1999[2]		1998[3]		1997[4]
1	Tiger Woods	19.98	Tiger Woods	12.30	Greg Norman	10.93
2	David Duval	13.15	Mark O'Meara	10.43	Tiger Woods	10.76
3	Colin Montgomerie	10.36	David Duval	9.67	Ernie Els	10.14
4	Davis Love III	9.48	Davis Love III	9.43	Nick Price	9.78
5	Ernie Els	8.64	Ernie Els	9.18	Davis Love III	9.58
6	Lee Westwood	7.85	Nick Price	8.98	Colin Montgomerie	9.33
7	Vijay Singh	7.82	Colin Montgomerie	8.91	Phil Mickelson	8.96
8	Nick Price	7.20	Lee Westwood	8.65	Tom Lehman	8.08
9	Phil Mickelson	6.58	Vijay Singh	8.51	Masashi Ozaki	8.05
10	Mark O'Meara	6.52	Phil Mickelson	7.76	Mark O'Meara	7.44

Rank	1996[5]		1995[6]		1994[7]
1	Greg Norman	10.78	Greg Norman	21.93	Nick Price	21.30
2	Tom Lehman	9.74	Nick Price	16.34	Greg Norman	20.68
3	Colin Montgomerie	9.10	Bernhard Langer	15.64	Nick Faldo	16.78
4	Ernie Els	8.60	Ernie Els	14.66	Bernhard Langer	15.66
5	Fred Couples	8.16	Colin Montgomerie	14.00	José María Olazábal	15.18
6	Nick Faldo	7.98	Nick Faldo	13.94	Fred Couples	13.74
7	Phil Mickelson	7.77	Corey Pavin	13.47	Ernie Els	13.57
8	Masashi Ozaki	7.58	Fred Couples	11.02	Colin Montgomerie	12.38
9	Davis Love III	7.53	Masashi Ozaki	10.82	Masashi Ozaki	11.39
10	Mark O'Meara	7.12	Steve Elkington	10.43	Corey Pavin	10.87