World Ranking to ease penalty on playing too much

[BigLeftyinAZ]

World Ranking to ease penalty on playing too much

Vijay Singh can now play as much as he wants without overly affecting his world ranking.

The Official World Golf Ranking board announced Wednesday that it will gradually change its formula starting next year, adding a maximum divisor of 52 tournaments so that players who prefer a full schedule will not be punished.

For most of the decade, Singh was the example most players cited when it came to the world ranking.

The formula is based on ranking points earned at each tournament, divided by the number of tournaments played. The value of points are gradually reduced every 13 weeks over a two-year period, with a minimum divisor of 40 tournaments.

That helped Tiger Woods, who doesn't play 40 times over a two-year period. It hurt players like Singh, who was playing as many as 60 tournaments during that period. Despite winning nine times in 2004, he didn't overtake Woods at No. 1 until late in the season.

The change is relatively simple.

The maximum divisor will be a player's most recent 52 tournaments - no matter how many he has played in the two-year period. The board decided on that number because it is the average number of tournaments played by the top 200 players in the world.

The board also was concerned that players were skipping tournaments at key times in the year because a lower divisor might help their ranking when trying to qualify for World Golf Championships and some of the majors.

"The board believes this measure will encourage players to play more often," said Sir Michael Bonallack, chairman of the ranking board.

The formula will be changed gradually to avoid any massive shifts at one time. The maximum divisor will be 60 in January, then drop two tournaments ever six months until it is down to 52 tournaments in January 2012.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/15/AR2009071501877.html

 

[provisional]

The pros take time off usually starting around September, and into October. October, November, and December becomes the "silly season", and is for those who want keep playing, perhaps to retain their tour card. November, December, and part of January is pretty much pro golf's off season. A time to rest up, and/or heal up for some. Add that to the fact that a lot of pros pick, and choose which tournaments they want to play in world wide. Perhaps some even pick their schedule so they are playing in tournaments where they have a chance to finish higher on the money list, protecting their tour cards. I may be wrong, but except for the majors, wgc events, and the fed ex events there are a lot of weeks some of the best of the best are not playing against each other. It is because of these scenarios that I think the world golf rankings should run from January 1st to December 31st of each year. December 31st the rankings are what they are. On January 1st, everyone starts from scratch. Keep the 125 money list from the previous year for determination factors as needed. Personally I would like to see the 125 money list changed to the top 70 money list to coincide with the cut line. You'd probably get better a field of better players, playing each other, more often. This because the world rankings do effect a pro player's pocket book. Bring back more Monday-Tuesday qualifiers for those out side the previous year's 125 money list. You'd might even see a few newer players breaking into the top 125 money list by doing that. Bring some new blood into these weekly events. With this you would see the cream rise to the top, every year. If you think about it, every January starts a new year in golf for everything golf related, except the world golf ranking.

Although I think the new 52 week schedule is a step in the right direction, it still leave the question of "what have you done lately" a viable question.
Just my $0.02 worth, and I won't this kind of change in my life time.:comp:

 

[Ty_Webb]

That helped Tiger Woods, who doesn't play 40 times over a two-year period.

What on earth are they on about? Tiger currently has 432.90 total points. He's played in 22 tournaments over the last 2 years. His average points is therefore 19.68. The world rankings use a minimum of 40, so in the official rankings, his average is 10.82.

19.68 vs 10.82 and this is supposedly helping him?

They should just come out and admit that they want to encourage people to play more by introducing a maximum. There has never been a penalty to playing too much. There is and has been a penalty to playing too little, which you can see clearly from Woods's numbers above. The product of the north end of a southbound bull is what this smells like.