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Golf's New World Ranking (NWR) - PGA Tour Performance Based World Ranking - by Jim G

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by Jim Grundberg - Its time for a new world golf ranking. Lets call it for simplicity the New World Ranking (NWR). The current world ranking had Tiger Woods fall to below number 50 in the world. Yet he remained the favorite at every single event he played in, and has always been considered by far the greatest golfer of his generation. So any ranking that would allow that to happen is not the best it can be.

I am proposing here a very simple system, using statistics and data available to everyone, that clearly identifies that best golfers in the world and promises to be much less controversial and much more stable over time.

Click here to read and view chart.

Let me know your thoughts.
 
I'll say this, TW will be favored in every event he enters because he has the game to win every event. It's just a matter if who shows up to beat him or if he shows to beat himself.

WR rewrite won't change that.
 
A "world ranking" doesn't make much sense at all if it only depends on PGA Tour results. If that's the case, Adam Scott's recent performances at tournaments in Australia mean nothing, which is a ridiculous statement.
 
While I understand that the OWGR is a bit flawed in places, this new system is even more flawed. First off not everyone plays on the PGA Tour. Two players comes to mind he played on the Euro Tour exclusively and that is Peter uihlein and Kiradech APHIBARNRAT. You mean to tell me the guy barely making the cut on the PGA tour is better than either if them. Because they aren't. As Ary said it can't be world ranking system without all tours across the world being used. I don't agree with money lists being used because some tournamanets just flat pay more than others for one reason or another. So what happens with WGC events? Do they now not count because those aren't PGA tour events...there's a lot of holes in that mans system.
 
I have always felt that the OWGR were so confusing and complicated and weren't a true reflection of the best players currently. The fact that it was a representation over a period of time brought players into the fold that weren't as good at a particular time and I have always found that troubling. I feel that a true global type system is needed but it is hard to base that with the different tours around the world and the amount of talent out there. Info like the proposed system in the first post and think our game needs something like that


KG

Just Tapping Away
 
To much emphasis on the PGA Tour itself IMO, too many other important tournaments and tours around the world that are not PGA events.
 
TW being the favorite to win and his OWGR are two seperate things.
 
seemoreputters said:
by Jim Grundberg - Its time for a new world golf ranking. Lets call it for simplicity the New World Ranking (NWR). The current world ranking had Tiger Woods fall to below number 50 in the world. Yet he remained the favorite at every single event he played in, and has always been considered by far the greatest golfer of his generation. So any ranking that would allow that to happen is not the best it can be.

I am proposing here a very simple system, using statistics and data available to everyone, that clearly identifies that best golfers in the world and promises to be much less controversial and much more stable over time.

Click here to read and view chart.

Let me know your thoughts.
Click to expand...

My thoughts for Jim Grundburg
I read your NWR piece and I'm at a loss to understand how/why someone in authority gave you space to print that nonsense. The PGA is only one piece of a larger puzzle.
 
Read through that piece and I can't believe that someone would seriously consider taking that model of ranking any further - In my opinion it wouldn't be worth the paper it was written on, I almost spat my drink across my keyboard laughing at the insane ramblings he has come out with

As a non-US person, I would liken his proposal to the baseball world series - if it is going to be a 'world' ranking then it has to include the world, rather than just a select group(ie the PGA tour). Apologies, but I have never understood how the baseball world series can be given that title when it only includes American teams and not any others from around the world
 
absolutely ridiculous that this guy only includes PGA Tour into the ranking.
 
Did you guys skim the article.

" For now it only measures performance on the single level playing field of the PGA Tour. This is a great place to start."

Its merely a starting point to use the PGA Tour since the top players have played there previously and a way to gain data to show the system in place. Some of the comments in this thread are laughable.
 
Didn't read it. Nothing wrong with current system. Being the favorite is Vegas thing anyway so who cares?
 
JB said:
Did you guys skim the article.

" For now it only measures performance on the single level playing field of the PGA Tour. This is a great place to start."

Its merely a starting point to use the PGA Tour since the top players have played there previously and a way to gain data to show the system in place. Some of the comments in this thread are laughable.
Click to expand...

But if he is only using the PGA Tour as a starting point, he is comparing apples with pears as the current world rankings are not based solely on the PGA Tour? So until he uses data from all sources, and not just a select source, anything he proposes is completely irrelevent compared to the current system in my eyes

Question to be considered - How to rank the events from the different tours if/when it was decided to go ahead with this form of ranking? Who is going to decide which of the events carrys the most weight?

I am going to completely flip this on its head and ask if it would make more sense to apply rankings to each tour only and completely ignore an all-encompassing world ranking?
 
Agree to an extent, but it certainly is a starting point when gathering data, only because most of the top players have some data to accumulate from the PGA Tour. He is not saying it should be the only thing that matters, or even that the ranking should be based only off of that. Just that when using a starting point to accumulate and show how it works, it makes sense.

Half of the comments in this thread seem to ignore that point completely and one was downright mean. And others it is clear they never read the article, just the 1st comment or two posted and went off of that.
 
I agree it is a starting point, but what would have made his comparison chart hold more weight to me is if he took only the PGA tour data and applied the current ranking calculations to it to show any differences between the current system and his proposal

If my original post seemed a bit harsh, I apologise and it was not my intention, it is to do with my analysis background and that we often see people trying to dispute pieces of work by producing their own and getting different results because they haven't used the same data source
 
Golf's New World Ranking (NWR) - PGA Tour Performance Based World Ranking - ...

Golf's New World Ranking (NWR) - PGA Tour Performance Based World Ranking - ...

malemotives said:
My thoughts for Jim Grundburg
I read your NWR piece and I'm at a loss to understand how/why someone in authority gave you space to print that nonsense. The PGA is only one piece of a larger puzzle.
Click to expand...

You should throw out all your SeeMore putters since the owner wrote this piece. A man that writes nonsense couldn't possibly create putters that work.
Wow, he has an idea and puts out there for all see and you smash it, which is your right but come on. Maybe you could write a suitable alternative
 
Tadashi70 said:
You should throw out all your SeeMore putters since the owner wrote this piece. A man that writes nonsense couldn't possibly create putters that work.
Wow, he has an idea and puts out there for all see and you smash it, which is your right but come on. Maybe you could write a suitable alternative
Click to expand...

Foot meet mouth

Got to love the Internet.
 
One thing I noticed that stuck out in your article was the European Tour members of the OWGR that don't travel well when they play on PGA Tour or co sanctioned events. How much of that could be they're not fully comfortable with the course setups over here vs what they play over there? Not being able to use the ground as much in their short game, plus the green speeds alone could be a tough change for some.

Interesting article though. You could almost substitute POY into the thing and have probably similar results on a one year basis. Heck, take it even further and finally give the PGA Tour Hall of Fame an actual criteria for admission.
 
JB said:
Agree to an extent, but it certainly is a starting point when gathering data, only because most of the top players have some data to accumulate from the PGA Tour. He is not saying it should be the only thing that matters, or even that the ranking should be based only off of that. Just that when using a starting point to accumulate and show how it works, it makes sense.

Half of the comments in this thread seem to ignore that point completely and one was downright mean. And others it is clear they never read the article, just the 1st comment or two posted and went off of that.
Click to expand...

I read the entire article. I saw the comment you quoted, the problem being he never explained how the other tournaments would be included. It appears that the PGA tour would be weighted from the way I understood it.
 
I appreciate the simple algorithm applied to come up with a ranking. Based on the outcome of the chart, the NWR puts significantly more weight on long term performance than short term and it appears to give majors more weight as well (Stenson from 3 to 10, Kuchar from 7 to 16 are good examples). This approach certainly makes the list less volatile.

This approach has some merit for the PGA tour. To transition this approach to a world wide tour base would not be so simple. Similarly to how this NWR weights majors more than standard tour victories (4 to 1), similar ratios need to be applied to all professional tours to provide a composite ranking that is accurate. To create that ratio to apply to wins, majors, cuts made, etc. would require analyzing performance of players who play on multiple tours. The sample size of that overlap may be too small to provide an accurate representation of relative strength for some of the tours (say the Asian for example). And this ratio, to be accurate, would have to be a moving target as tours become stronger or weaker (again, my gut would tell me the Asian tour is getting much stronger over time as the sport grows in countries like China). This is driving factor of the complexity of world rankings. The article addresses a solution to the the volatility of the rankings for a single tour.
 
I did read the entire article. Heck, I read it twice: once a few days ago when this thread started, and again earlier this afternoon.

First of all: Tiger Woods was never the favorite in every event that he played, unless the author is going off of Vegas odds for each tournament, which aren't a true indication of the favorite. Tiger Woods is the biggest "public" play in golf from a betting standpoint, that's why his odds are always good. When Tiger dropped to #51, it was in October 2011. That was shortly after he finished next-to-last at the WGC Bridgestone Invitational, then went 77-73 in the next week and missed the cut at the PGA Championship, and didn't even qualify for the Fedex Cup Playoffs that year. At that time, he hadn't won a tournament since 2009. His ranking dropped because his play was not good at all, and I challenge the author to find something that says he was the favorite in a tournament in that time period.

Second: this author wants there to be less volatility in the rankings. I'm sorry, but what fun is that? The current rankings are over a 2-year period, they should be weighted more towards what a player has done in the past 6 months to be a true reflection of who is hot and who is not in the game at this current time. The author wants to integrate career performance into the world rankings. So you're telling me that what Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson did in 2003 should impact his ranking in 2013? I couldn't disagree more with that approach. The sport that compares most favorably to golf in terms of how players are ranked is tennis, and tennis does their rankings based on the previous 52 weeks, not 2 years like in golf: http://www.atpworldtour.com/Rankings/Rankings-FAQ.aspx

To go to a system that looks back for a longer period of time is the wrong move, IMO.

Third: I do like that the author wants to put even more weight on what a win in a major means to a golfer's ranking, it's one of the few things that I agree with the author on. Perhaps WGC wins should be like "2 wins" in regular tour events.

Fourth: My view still hasn't changed: even if only including PGA Tour events is merely a "starting point", you can't call it a world ranking if >90% of the tournaments are played in the US. Just call it "Golfer Power Rankings" or something like that. It irks me the same way that the Miami Heat are the "world champions" of basketball this year, but that's what happens in all sports here in the US, I guess.

Fifth: It would be fun for the author to contribute to this thread and attempt to refute some of our points in an attempt to stir conversation.
 
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