Since new criteria came into effect in August that placed more emphasis on Strokes Gained World Rating than strength of field to determine the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR), there have been accusations that it is heavily skewed in towards the PGA Tour.
Now, there is more evidence to suggest that is the case with the revelation that reaching the world’s top 50 would be almost unachievable for Asian Tour players beginning from scratch. According to the popular Twitter account Nosferatu, which specialises in analysing OWGR data, such a player would need around 20 wins in two years across 40 Asian Tour events to have a chance of breaching the world’s top 50.
Based on the average SoF of regular @asiantourgolf events since the new #OWGR system was adopted, if a player starts from scratch and plays 20 events per year, he would need roughly ~20 wins (over 2 years and 40 events played) to get close to top 50.In other words, impossible… https://t.co/g3TnaNJFvEDecember 4, 2022
That’s an important position to attain because for players who’ve yet to win a Major, eligibility to two of them can depend on being ranked at World No.50 or higher. For example, while there are various exemptions to the Masters, being among the world’s top 50 at the end of the year is one route to eligibility. Similarly, qualification to the Open Championship is also available to anyone in the clutch of players.
Another Twitter account, Data Golf, countered the original tweet slightly by pointing out that, due to the gulf in skill level between the average Asian Tour player and players in the world’s top 50, any player at that level on the Asian Tour would enjoy plenty of victories:
For a bit of perspective: we have the avg player on the Asian Tour at a similar skill level to the avg player on the Latinoamerica Tour (~3 strokes worse per round than the PGA Tour).We also have the avg player in the D1 NCAA Championship (over last few years) at -2.3 skill. https://t.co/2dEicCS2C8December 4, 2022
More perspective: we have a Top 50 golfer at +0.75 skill. So we are talking about a +3.75 skill gap. Tiger at his absolute peak (year 2000) was 4 strokes/round better than the avg. PGA Tour player. So, ya, a Top 50 player would win a lot on the Asian Tour.December 5, 2022
Nevertheless, there is clearly still a high bar to reaching the OWGR top 50 for anyone plying their trade on the Asian Tour. Indeed, one of breakout players of recent months, Tom Kim, made his…
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