World Golf Rankings

Who are the top golfers in the world?

How are the golfers ranked?

 

Men

Six professional tours: The US PGA Tour, European Tour, JGTO, SA PGA, Asian Tour and the PGA Tour of Australasia, together with the Canadian, Nationwide and Challenge Tours are included in the World Golf Ratings. Every week, on Monday, the new ranking is issued following the completion of the previous week's tournaments from around the world.  The Official events are used and points are awarded to the players. The points are  generally awarded related to the strength of the field (how good the players are that are playing).  The Four MAJOR Championships are rated seperately because they are considered to be of higher quality and difficulty.   The Players Championship is also rated seperately.  Other tournaments around the world that garner more points are the BMW Championship in Europe, and the Australian, Japan and the South African Open Championships.

The Points that the players accumulate are over a two year rolling period are included in the rankings. Points that are earned in the most recent 13 weeks are doubled, and the points decline as they get further out. (for example, points earned near the two year point are not worth as much as the current weeks)  Each player is then ranked according to his average points per tournament. 

The Winners of the Masters Tournament, The US Open Championship, the Open Championship and the PGA Championship are awarded 50 points (they get 30 points for 2nd place, 20 for 3rd, 15 for 4th down to a .075 of a point for a player competing in the final round)  The winner of the Players Championship is awarded 40 points and down to .60 of a point for 60th place and ties.  The BMW Championship winner gets 32 points. The Volvo Masters of Asia and the Nationwide Tour Championship get a minimum of 10 points (and award points down to 32 place).  Other tournaments have a variety of points awarded based on the difficulty and strength of the field.

The Top Players

Currently the top player in the world is Tiger Woods. His point average is 23.20. The player in second place is Jim Furyk who has an average points of 8.82. Tiger Woods has 997.77 points and Jim Furyk has 485.33 points. You can see what a big difference there is between first place and second, which only goes to show just how good Tiger Woods is playing!  Phil Mickelson is number 3 and Adam Scott is number 4.  Vijay Singh, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Luke Donald and Sergio Garcia round out the top ten players in the world.

Women

The Women are ranked with teh Rolex Golf Rankings. The rankings are new for 2006. Any Professional or Amateur women golfer who has competed in at least 15 official events over a two year period is eligible to be ranked.  Official events on the five major tours (LPGA, JLPGA, KLPGA, LET and ALPG) as well as the Duramed Futures Tour  are used in the rankings.   Points are awarded according to the strenght of the field  A player is then ranked according to her average points per tournament over a 104 week period.

The Top Players

The top players vary a little, but Annika Sorenstam is the top ranked woman player in the world  She has 728.82 points in 43 events.  Lorenca Ochoa is number two with 553.20 points and Karrie Web has 488 points for third place. The other women in the Top Ten are Cristie Kerr, Juli Inkster, Paula Creamer, Ai Miyazato, Jeong Jang, Michelle Wie and Shiho Ohyama.   Michelle Wie does not play very many events, so she has moved around on the World Rankings and has even been dropped from the rankings when she doesn't play in many eligible tournaments.  Many will say that the rankings are not accurate because they put an emphasis on players that play a lot of tournaments, but I don't think anyone can argue that Annika is and should be number 1.

 

I've tried to give you a basic idea on how the World Golf Rankings are made and which players are the top players in the world today. The rankings can change from week to week, but Tiger Woods was on the list at number one for 264 consecutive weeks  until he lost that spot to Vijay Singh, but soon earned it back and is now back on top of the World Golf Rankings.