This week sees the debut of a new system to determine the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR). It’s already creating plenty of controversy, but how does it work?
Previously, the OWGR used a strength of field system determined by the players in the top 200 in each tournament. However, from this week, a Field Rating will be created for each tournament determined by the Strokes Gained World Rating of each player. That is calculated on a round-by-round basis in stroke-play events over a rolling two-year period taking into account the relative difficulty of every round.
The figure assigned to each player determines his performance points. The sum of those performance points is the total Field Rating, which is equal to the total ranking points to be distributed at the end of the tournament.
It doesn’t end there, though, with a performance curve also coming into play to reward winning and performance in Majors. Meanwhile, players with 10 or fewer recorded scores will be assigned a value of 0.01 performance points to events, while those with fewer than 50 recorded scores can each provide a maximum of 10% of an event’s field rating.
Major Championships will continue to award 100 first-place ranking points, while The Players Championship will award 80 first-place ranking points. All other tournaments will award ranking points based on the the strength and depth of the fields up to a maximum of 80 first-place points.
The impact of the new system is likely to be gradual, with little immediate impact on the top 50. Nevertheless, there has been a backlash from some, with criticism that DP World Tour players will find it far harder to break into the top 50 under the new system.
One insider told Golf Monthly: “The one thing that everybody has overlooked is the fact that the European Tour and the rest of the world have been absolutely shafted by the PGA Tour on world ranking points. That’s the one thing that’s never been mentioned, it’s been overlooked, and what the PGA Tour have done to the rest of the world is absolutely outrageous and with all the points…
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