One of the favorite items that we publish from time to time is the Official World Golf Rankings. It’s always fun to see who is second and so on. However, every time we publish these ranking about a thousand of you, including myself, ask who, what and how is being counted to get these rankings?
Being the crack reporter that I am, I have taken it upon myself to ferret out the answer to this important question. However, after hours, okay minutes of research I feel it is my duty to inform you that the formula used to calculate the aforementioned ranking is more complicated that Chinese arithmetic, but you asked for it, so here it is:
The Official World Golf Ranking, which is endorsed by the four Major Championships and the six professional tours which make up the International Federation of PGA Tours, is issued every Monday, following the completion of the previous week’s tournaments from around the world.
The official events from the six professional tours together with the Canadian, Nationwide and European Challenge Tours are all taken into account and “Ranking Points” are awarded according to the players’ finishing positions and are generally related to the strength of the field based on the number and ranking of the Top-200 World Ranked players and the Top-30 of the Home Tour players in the respective tournaments (Event “Rating Values”). However, the four Major Championships are rated separately to reflect the higher quality of the events together with the Players Championship in the United States. In addition, the BMW PGA Championship in Europe, the Australian, Japan and South African Open Championships and the Flagship events on the Asian and Nationwide Tours are allocated higher minimum point levels to reflect their status.
The World Ranking Points for each player are accumulated over a two year “rolling” period with the points awarded for each event maintained for a 13-week period to place additional emphasis on recent performances – ranking points will then be reduced in equal increments for the remaining 91 weeks of the two year Ranking period. Each player is then ranked according to his average points per tournament, which is determined by dividing his total number of points by the tournaments he has played over that two-year period. There is a minimum divisor of 40 tournaments over the two year ranking period.
The winners of the Masters Tournament, the US Open Championship, the Open Championship and the PGA Championship are awarded 100 points (60 points for 2nd place, 40 for 3rd, 30 for 4th down to 1.50 points for a player completing the final round), and the winner of the Players Championship is awarded 80 points (points are awarded down to 1.20 points for 60th place and ties). The BMW PGA Championship has a minimum 64 points for the winner (points to 56th place). Minimum points levels for the winners of official Tour events have been set at 6 points for the Canadian Tour (points to 6th place), 12 points for the European Challenge Tour (points to 14th place), 14 points for the Asian, Sunshine and Nationwide Tours (points to 17th place), 16 points for Australasian and Japanese Tours (points to 19th place) and 24 points for European and the United States Tours (points to 27th place). In addition the Open Championships of Australia, Japan and South Africa have a minimum of 32 points for the winner (points to 37th place) and the Flagship events on the Asian and Nationwide Tours have a minimum of 20 points for the winner (points to 22nd place). In the cases of co-sanctioned Tour events, the minimum points levels are determined using the “average” of the minimum Tour ranking points from each Tour (rounded up to nearest whole number).
Points are reduced by 25% for tournaments curtailed to 36 holes because of inclement weather or other reasons.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
The Tallest Guy On Tour
In the 1970s, five foot five inch, 148 pound Freddie Patek was asked, “What’s it like to be the smallest guy in Major League Baseball?” to which he smartly answered, “It’s a hell of a lot better than being the smallest guy in Minor League Baseball.”
Such is the predicament of Cory Pavin.
Although slightly bigger than the diminutive Patek, at five foot nine and 155 pounds Cory is a lot closer to qualifying as a jockey than a bouncer. At 48 years old, the 1995 U.S. Open winner has competed in 25 tournaments in 2007 banking $498,252, which sounds like a lot until you realize that places him 138 on the money list.
He ranks 195 in driving distance with an average of 265.3 yards (you probably have someone in your foursome who hits it further). Playing from the Tournament tees it’s predictable that he would also rank 180 in greens in regulations (Tiger is hitting a wedge and Cory is hitting a four iron). Just as predictable are his putting stats; long irons and hybrids into the green is not the way to get it close, or make birdies (ranked 182), or eagles (ranked 122).
However, Cory has had his moments; with fifteen victories including one major and total earnings of $13,681,873, he’s made more money on the PGA Tour than the likes of Payne Stewart, Tom Kite, Jose Maria Olazabal and Tom Watson, yet many people likely regarded him less than any of those players. Perhaps it is because he is in that difficult phase of his career where he is too old to compete on the regular Tour and too young for the Champions Tour. Everyone goes through it, and like the old fire-horse, it is hard not to run (even though your legs are gone) when you hear the bell. And let’s face it, where else could he make $498,252 a year for playing a game?
It doesn’t matter that Tiger Woods almost made more money in 2007 than Cory made in his entire career. It doesn’t matter that Johnny Miller makes fun of his swing (he also made more money on Tour than Johnny Miller did). What does matter is that he loves what he does and no one should blame him for stretching out a career as long as possible? He understands that he can’t out drive Tiger Woods, but he couldn’t out drive Jack Nicklaus, either.
Perhaps he is a man out of time, more suited to the old days of bad swings and worse attire. Still his 280 U.S. Open score bettered the likes of Greg Norman that year and beat the festive-way out of Fred Herd who shot 84-85-75-84 for a hard earned 328 in 1898.
There is an old joke that says that the race doesn’t always go to the biggest and fastest, but don’t bet against it, and I imagine Cory Pavin has heard that kind of stuff his entire life. But somewhere in his journey he discovered that it doesn’t matter that life is not fair, sports are. If you can run faster you win and it doesn’t matter if you are five foot, five, or six foot five. And another thing, when you’re standing on the winner’s podium everyone looks a lot taller.
I suspect that Cory is counting the days when he’ll become a rookie one more time and join the Champions Tour, but maybe not. I bet he’s the kind of guy that loves to give the young guys a tip or two, or tell them how it feels to win the U.S. Open. And I wager that he would like to catch lightning in a bottle one more time on the regular Tour, and don’t bet against him doing just that. His last victory was the 2006 U.S. Bank Tournament in Milwaukee where he shot 20 under. Remember, he had that incredible start, then held on for dear life. I can still see that funny looking swing kicking up divots and hear David Feherty making jokes. By the way Cory made a lot more money on Tour than David Feherty did, as well.
And one other thing, a couple of years ago when we organized a tour of the J. Eric Jonsson Community School, a benefactors of the Byron Nelson Championship, Cory Pavin was one of only about five or six players that actually took time out of their schedule to tour the school.
Interestingly, the 7 and 8-year old children didn’t have any idea who Cory Pavin was, but that didn’t seem make any difference to them or Cory. All they knew was a nice man wanted to see the pictures they had painted and that was pretty cool. I remember watching him take the time to look at every picture and compliment every child. It wasn’t long after that I remember thinking that Cory Pavin looked a lot taller than I thought he was.
Such is the predicament of Cory Pavin.
Although slightly bigger than the diminutive Patek, at five foot nine and 155 pounds Cory is a lot closer to qualifying as a jockey than a bouncer. At 48 years old, the 1995 U.S. Open winner has competed in 25 tournaments in 2007 banking $498,252, which sounds like a lot until you realize that places him 138 on the money list.
He ranks 195 in driving distance with an average of 265.3 yards (you probably have someone in your foursome who hits it further). Playing from the Tournament tees it’s predictable that he would also rank 180 in greens in regulations (Tiger is hitting a wedge and Cory is hitting a four iron). Just as predictable are his putting stats; long irons and hybrids into the green is not the way to get it close, or make birdies (ranked 182), or eagles (ranked 122).
However, Cory has had his moments; with fifteen victories including one major and total earnings of $13,681,873, he’s made more money on the PGA Tour than the likes of Payne Stewart, Tom Kite, Jose Maria Olazabal and Tom Watson, yet many people likely regarded him less than any of those players. Perhaps it is because he is in that difficult phase of his career where he is too old to compete on the regular Tour and too young for the Champions Tour. Everyone goes through it, and like the old fire-horse, it is hard not to run (even though your legs are gone) when you hear the bell. And let’s face it, where else could he make $498,252 a year for playing a game?
It doesn’t matter that Tiger Woods almost made more money in 2007 than Cory made in his entire career. It doesn’t matter that Johnny Miller makes fun of his swing (he also made more money on Tour than Johnny Miller did). What does matter is that he loves what he does and no one should blame him for stretching out a career as long as possible? He understands that he can’t out drive Tiger Woods, but he couldn’t out drive Jack Nicklaus, either.
Perhaps he is a man out of time, more suited to the old days of bad swings and worse attire. Still his 280 U.S. Open score bettered the likes of Greg Norman that year and beat the festive-way out of Fred Herd who shot 84-85-75-84 for a hard earned 328 in 1898.
There is an old joke that says that the race doesn’t always go to the biggest and fastest, but don’t bet against it, and I imagine Cory Pavin has heard that kind of stuff his entire life. But somewhere in his journey he discovered that it doesn’t matter that life is not fair, sports are. If you can run faster you win and it doesn’t matter if you are five foot, five, or six foot five. And another thing, when you’re standing on the winner’s podium everyone looks a lot taller.
I suspect that Cory is counting the days when he’ll become a rookie one more time and join the Champions Tour, but maybe not. I bet he’s the kind of guy that loves to give the young guys a tip or two, or tell them how it feels to win the U.S. Open. And I wager that he would like to catch lightning in a bottle one more time on the regular Tour, and don’t bet against him doing just that. His last victory was the 2006 U.S. Bank Tournament in Milwaukee where he shot 20 under. Remember, he had that incredible start, then held on for dear life. I can still see that funny looking swing kicking up divots and hear David Feherty making jokes. By the way Cory made a lot more money on Tour than David Feherty did, as well.
And one other thing, a couple of years ago when we organized a tour of the J. Eric Jonsson Community School, a benefactors of the Byron Nelson Championship, Cory Pavin was one of only about five or six players that actually took time out of their schedule to tour the school.
Interestingly, the 7 and 8-year old children didn’t have any idea who Cory Pavin was, but that didn’t seem make any difference to them or Cory. All they knew was a nice man wanted to see the pictures they had painted and that was pretty cool. I remember watching him take the time to look at every picture and compliment every child. It wasn’t long after that I remember thinking that Cory Pavin looked a lot taller than I thought he was.
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