The World Golf Rankings

It seems to be much talked of but did you know that it’s only since 1986 there has been an official world golf ranking list. I say ‘only’ because I truly believe that 1994 was 10 years ago. Anyway, Bernard Langer was the first official number one when the list was inaugurated prior to the 1986 Masters. Greg Norman soon overtook Langer and he finished the year on top of the rankings.

The calculation of the world ranking is quite complex using averages over 2 years and different values for the various golf tours. 

The purpose of the calculations is to give a higher ranking to the most consistent players while also rewarding those who perform well in the majors and other big events where the number of higher ranked players is greater.

Only 2 players have been at world no 1 without winning a major; Luke Donald and Lee Westwood.There are always complaints when the world rankings don’t favour your favourite player but you should always remember that being consistently highly placed in a tournament is often more rewarding that being a one time winner and doing nothing else of note.

Since the average is taken over 2 years it has happened that a golfer who has been dominant in one year can hold on to the number one spot despite have a poor second year. As an example, in the year 2000, Tiger Woods earned so many points that even if he had not gained any points in 2001 his average points would have had him in the number 1 spot.

This was really just a general musing into the history of the number one players in golf. Although some may disagree, even with the rankings officially starting in 1986, I’m still not convinced that the number one golfer is always the best either in a season or long term. 

Should the system be changed to reflect a more season to season raking - yes, probably - but at the end of the day being number one is just a title and I’d rather be world number 8 and hit all my professional goals. 

On that note, with my love of statistics I thought it would be of interest to have a look at the players that have been world number 1, how many weeks they have held that position and what percentage of time they have spent at number one across all number 1 golfers.