How would you do it?

[Imurg]

Work out who's number 1 in the World.
Obviously the World Rankings are the way it's done at the moment - a 2 year rolling record.

Now, a lot of Forummers are saying on the "World No1" thread that Westwood doesn't deserve to be Number 1 for various reasons.
Ok. how would you decide. There has to be a number 1 but how would you go about it?
Personally I'd weight the Majors and WGC events much higher than anything else. Reduce the points available for run-of-the-mill Tour events too. Also reduce the timespan to 18 months. That should favour the Major/WGC winners and might stop players hoverring around the top 20 basically treading water and living off past glories. The places will change a lot more too.

This is not a thread about whether Lee Westwood should/shouldn't be Number 1.
I want to know how you would do it differently.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

I think there needs to be some evening out of the points ranking for tournaments in Europe and the US so they carry the same weighting. For example the BMW at Wentworth is the tours flagship event and so should carry the same weighting as the equivalent (TPC?) on the US.

I don't really see a truely fair system as WGC's and majors favour those already in the top 50. I'll be interested to see the other ideas though

 

[Ethan]

There is no satisfactory way because there is always the possibility that a player will pop up and win an event, and form is often quite fickle, unlike tennis, say.

You therefore run the risk of either making the effect of short term form greater, and thus increasing instability in the rankings, or making long term form important and introducing a lot of inertia.

Tiger Woods hasn't been playing like the best player in the world at all this season, yet was only dethroned today, but you could change the system to one where the number 1 changes every fortnight.

 

[stevek1969]

I think there has to be a level playing as i think most of the PGA Tour events carry more weigh the the European ones( i might be wrong).
Fair play to Westwood it ain't his fault he's No1 although perosnally i dont think he is,i think it should be weighted on the Majors,WGC,The Players and the Bmw on The European Tour,to many guys hangabout the top 20 hoovering cash up to easy.

 

[RGDave]

As my other post.

Last 10-20 tournaments coupled with the the results of majors wherever in the season we are.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

The only real way I can see it working is to designate say 20-25 tournaments per year plus the WGC's and majors on either tour (European and PGA) and give them all equal ranking values. That way there is a standardised season and players can pick and choose their itinerary and aren't necessarily forced to the US in pursuit of ranking points.

 

[Billysboots]

I'd base it purely on the last event Tiger won so that all his fans on another thread can continue to tell us how great he is.

Seriously, though, my only wish is for more weight being given to top events outside the US so as to encourage a more global game. We are talking about world rankings, after all.

 

[SammmeBee]

Work out who's number 1 in the World.
Obviously the World Rankings are the way it's done at the moment - a 2 year rolling record.

Now, a lot of Forummers are saying on the "World No1" thread that Westwood doesn't deserve to be Number 1 for various reasons.
Ok. how would you decide. There has to be a number 1 but how would you go about it?
Personally I'd weight the Majors and WGC events much higher than anything else. Reduce the points available for run-of-the-mill Tour events too. Also reduce the timespan to 18 months. That should favour the Major/WGC winners and might stop players hoverring around the top 20 basically treading water and living off past glories. The places will change a lot more too.

This is not a thread about whether Lee Westwood should/shouldn't be Number 1.
I want to know how you would do it differently.

So your basic suggestion is reduce the time span to 18 months then? Well done....

I think the fact that the 'Europe based' players are moveing up the rankings actually shows that the rankings are pretty good as they are for players on both sides of the Atlantic....

 

[SammmeBee]

The only real way I can see it working is to designate say 20-25 tournaments per year plus the WGC's and majors on either tour (European and PGA) and give them all equal ranking values. That way there is a standardised season and players can pick and choose their itinerary and aren't necessarily forced to the US in pursuit of ranking points.

So how does someone who can't play in any/many of these events get points then???

 

[Evesdad]

I dont think the 2year window is too bad, any smaller and a brief up turn in form could thrust you to the top and straight out again when your form vanishes. As said many times before form is temporay class lasts a life time. I do think that Westwood deserves to be number 1 as no one else has consistently performed, unfortunately he hasn't won a major which means he will always have the doubters. Stricker is another who has won nothing of note but is nearly always in the top ten or higher. I'm just surprised at how long it's taken to topple tiger no one has stepped up, instead Many different people have won and people like michelson have failed to capitalise.

 

[Screwback]

I would base it simply on the majors and WGC events the best players in the world are there and if you cant perform you aint good enough.

Other than that let the GM Forum debate it out....

 

[NickSwan]

2 years just seems to long to me. Tiger staying number 1 for so long without swinging a golf club for 2 long period when he had his knee opp and then time away for personal reasons indicates to me that it is too long.

Why not do it like F1? At the end of each year the points are added up and you are then world number 1 for the next 12 months?

Cheers
Nick

 

[HomerJSimpson]

The only real way I can see it working is to designate say 20-25 tournaments per year plus the WGC's and majors on either tour (European and PGA) and give them all equal ranking values. That way there is a standardised season and players can pick and choose their itinerary and aren't necessarily forced to the US in pursuit of ranking points.

So how does someone who can't play in any/many of these events get points then???

Opens are just that and so lower ranked players still have a chance to qualify and therefore amass points. Howerver taking your point you could still have 25 or so "top" events which is where the majority of the worlds best players are going to be and so can be used to decide the number 1. On top of that then assign the other tour events on both sides of the Atlantic ranking points on second tier footing. For example if you got 200 points for winning a top 25 event, you could award 100 for the other events so that those competing on tour and still trying to retain a tour card can still climb the rankings with consistant perfomances and then eventually get into the higher ranking events as now.

I don't confess to it being an ideal solution but it seems a way of making sure world rankings are for events globally and not just in the US

 

[Wheyayeman]

For me the fairest way would be to individually weight the tournaments based on who actually played in them at the time and their current world ranking, would be a complicated format but I'm sure the boffins could knock up some kind of computer program. In addition I'd keep the 2 yr countback but reduce the previous years points by 50%, which would reward consistency over the period but put more emphasis on current form and avoid the "Tiger" scenary of being No1 without even playing.

 

[Imurg]

For me the fairest way would be to individually weight the tournaments based on who actually played in them at the time and their current world ranking,

I believe that this is basically the way they do it now. The more players in the top100 at a tournament the more points are available.

 

[funkyfred]

The only real way I can see it working is to designate say 20-25 tournaments per year plus the WGC's and majors on either tour (European and PGA) and give them all equal ranking values. That way there is a standardised season and players can pick and choose their itinerary and aren't necessarily forced to the US in pursuit of ranking points.

So how does someone who can't play in any/many of these events get points then???

Opens are just that and so lower ranked players still have a chance to qualify and therefore amass points. Howerver taking your point you could still have 25 or so "top" events which is where the majority of the worlds best players are going to be and so can be used to decide the number 1. On top of that then assign the other tour events on both sides of the Atlantic ranking points on second tier footing. For example if you got 200 points for winning a top 25 event, you could award 100 for the other events so that those competing on tour and still trying to retain a tour card can still climb the rankings with consistant perfomances and then eventually get into the higher ranking events as now.

I don't confess to it being an ideal solution but it seems a way of making sure world rankings are for events globally and not just in the US

And what about the other tours, the Asian etc.

The reason Tiger stayed No 1 for so long was because of his good play before his knee operation and that he amased so many points. I believe ALL the tournaments around the world have a weight within them, perhaps that could be looked at and more creidence be given to some European events.

But we are coming in to a point where Tiger wasn't playing last year so we should see a dramatic reduction in his points tally.

I'm not 100% sure the system is right but i think it works quite well. Consistancy over a period of time is in my opinion the correct way.

 

[Swinger]

So tiger who won and performed well last year drops to 300 this year?

Where should we have tiger?

It's hard to get right but I think that the world rankings does a pretty good job. The world number 1 should be the most consistant performer and 2 years means that taking a break for a few months or getting injured for 6 won't drop you 1000 places.

You could possibly have hottest/coldest players in the last 6 months and stuff to show the movers and shakers. I'm sure if we were state side then they would show the people who have gained the most points recently every 20 mins.

I was under the impression that the points available for each event were based on the rankings of the people in the event. If not then thats I'm sure it would be easy enough to devise some system that could be applied to all events across the globe.

This does lead to small event staying small and big events getting bigger names, prizes and offering more points but all the ideas mentioned with regards to events do exactly the same. If this wasn't the case then some guy from the challenge tour could become world no 1 for winning 5 times in the last 5 months.

I'd like to see people get points for playing well in a good field wherever they play, no extra emphasis on WGC events the field is strong enough so playing well will be reward enough, possibly the same for majors.

 

[moonraker]

Does any one know how tennis do there rankings, their rankings seem to take in all touraments and is played vritally all year round like golf.

 

[HawkeyeMS]

I was thinking about this on the M25 on the way home this evening.

I reckon just take the points for the last say 15 events and points for majors in the current season. All this nonsense about taking so many 63rds of the points of a tournament depending on how long ago it was as they do at the moment is just nonsense.

If Tiger and the like only choose to play a few of the events then that's the risk they take and if they want to be number one they either need to play more or win when they do play.

That way, the rankings would be based on recent form and you wouldn't get ridiculous situations as we have at the moment where Tiger has been No.1 all year despite hardly playing and then gets taken over by someone who has been playing poorly and is currently injured

You'd have to balance out the points so the European Tour was equal to the US Tour, but they should be doing that anyway.

 

[viscount17]

Ought to be based on the top rated player each season; you remain No.1 for the following season only (as in F1 and a whole host of other sports - except tennis which doesn't count).

Points need to be redistributed across all tours, not just US and Europe, otherwise you're heading for US-style 'World Champions' in a sport no-one is allowed to compete in.

There is nothing wrong with a guy who finishes in the Top 5 in a lot of events becoming No.1 and in fact is more worthy than a guy who wins once then does nothing else all season.