OWGR - Week #9

It gives me great, great pleasure to say... congratulations to Rory McIlroy, winner of the Honda Classic and the new number 1 golfer in the world!!! Apart from the brilliant play all week, he showed some great maturity and steel over the last holes today. FANTASTIC!

I missed unfortunately Tiger's charge up the leaderboard today... must've been pretty exciting. But Gillis' tremendous effort and finish means that TW is denied for the time being a return to the top 15 (he stops at #16). Other movers at the top include Charl Schwartzel who is replacing Adam Scott in the top 10, as Jason Day moves up to #7. Otherwise, not too many significant changes around the top 50 cut line... And a warm welcome to the top 100 for Michael Thompson!

And finally, congratulations to Edward Loar for winning the NW event in Panama; a leap of over 800 places should bring him from #1255 to somewhere around #430.

The OWGR table after week #9 should look like this:

1 Rory McIlroy
2 Luke Donald
3 Lee Westwood
4 Martin Kaymer
5 Steve Stricker
6 Webb Simpson
7 Jason Day
8 Dustin Johnson
9 Charl Schwartzel
10 Hunter Mahan
--------------------------
11 Adam Scott
12 Phil Mickelson
13 Bill Haas
14 Matt Kuchar
15 Graeme McDowell
16 Tiger Woods
17 Nick Watney
18 Sergio Garcia
19 Brandt Snedeker
20 Keegan Bradley
21 K.J. Choi
22 Justin Rose
23 Bubba Watson
24 Mark Wilson
25 Ian Poulter
26 Paul Casey
27 Peter Hanson
28 Alvaro Quiros
29 David Toms
30 Thomas Bjorn
31 Bo Van Pelt
32 Louis Oosthuizen
33 Simon Dyson
34 Robert Karlsson
35 Martin Laird
36 Rickie Fowler
37 Anders Hansen
38 John Senden
39 K.T. Kim
40 Fredrik Jacobson
41 Jason Dufner
42 Bae Sang-moon
43 Aaron Baddeley
44 Paul Lawrie
45 Francesco Molinari
46 Zach Johnson
47 Ben Crane
48 Geoff Ogilvy
49 Kyle Stanley
50 Gonzalo Fdez-Castano
--------------------------------
51 Miguel A Jimenez
52 Retief Goosen
53 Ryo Ishikawa
54 Y.E. Yang
55 Jonathan Byrd
56 Darren Clarke
57 Robert Rock
58 Gary Woodland
59 Greg Chalmers
60 Rafael Cabrera Bello
61 Jim Furyk
62 Matteo Manassero
63 Robert Allenby
64 Kevin Na
65 Ernie Els
66 George Coetzee
67 Spencer Levin
68 Nicolas Colsaerts
69 Charles Howell-III
70 Ryan Moore
71 Joost Luiten
72 Johnson Wagner
73 Sean O'Hair
74 Alexander Noren
75 Vijay Singh
76 Chez Reavie
77 Rory Sabbatini
78 Toru Taniguchi
79 Lucas Glover
80 Hiroyuki Fujita
81 Jaco Van Zyl
82 Thomas Aiken
83 Ryan Palmer
84 Pablo Larrazabal
85 Harrison Frazar
86 Edoardo Molinari
87 Carl Pettersson
88 Jeff Overton
89 Padraig Harrington
90 Robert Garrigus
91 D.A. Points
92 Gregory Havret
93 Branden Grace
94 David Lynn
95 Michael Hoey
96 Jamie Donaldson
97 Bryce Molder
98 Marcus Fraser
99 Michael Thompson
100 Yuta Ikeda
-----------------------------
101 Stephen Gallacher
102 Koumei Oda
103 Brendan Jones
....

I think the guess that the "Cadillac" field remains unchanged is correct. Don't think the FedEx route has offered a place to anyone new either.

(Was hoping Charl would catch J.Day . . . . )

Hard to believe that Jason Day moved up 3 spots w/o playing, and the guys he passed were also idle.

I guess he lost a tournament in his divisor, offsetting the attrition.

#6-#12 have to be in a virtual 7 way tie for the 6th spot. Less than two tenths last week. Probably even less as Mickelson lost a tournament in his divisor so he should have narrowed the gap even more.

Early check shows that Doral stands somewhere near the 76-78 border (we'll wait and see if people like Poults will commit or not in the end).

Rory's great achievement of becoming the new world #1 can be short lived, so he certainly shouldn't relax just yet. Luke and Lee can both get to #1 and in Luke's case, if he wins, he will move back to #1 no matter what Rory does. Once again, nobody can touch the top 3 as the gap to 4th place continued to widen after last week. But quite a few guys can take Kaymer's #4 spot, including Mr. Woods himself (with a win, of course)...

Prince, imagine a worst case scenario for rory where he finishes near the bottom of the field, what does Luke have to do to get the number one spot back?

(Back of the envelope calculations)

Luke is 16.7 points behind Rory so it looks like if Rory has a bad hangover, Luke has to finish solo fifth (18.24 or 18.72 pts) or better. 6th place is worth either 15.2 or 15.6 points so it looks like a two-tie for 5th will not be enough. (disclaimer: Not factoring attrition.)

As I opined earlier, #6-#12 is really close. Simpson #6 is at 5.069 and Mickelson is at 4.960. Just aq little more than one tenth of a point separation.

Just a couple of pointers on that Mac/GPB...

- if Rory doesn't score anything this week (which means finishing 60th or worse... surely not!), Luke needs a 2- or 3-way tie for 4th to get back to #1 (depending if it's worth 76 or 78 pts, respectively)
- perhaps a slightly more realistic scenario... if Rory finishes outside top 10, Luke needs a solo 3rd or better to get back to #1

GPB, these sort of minuscule differences happen every now and then but they don't last very long. Next week that particular differential will increase to ~0.25pts before you add any scores from Dural. And as most of those chaps in that bracket are quite likely to score, probability is that it will all look quite different next week...

The difference between #6 and #12 is not a big deal this week as they are all playing Cadillac

But when converting #6 to #12 in the OWGR formulas for rating tournaments it has a good chance of changing the Level of the tournament.

There is a difference of 6 World EVR pts (#6=21 world EVR, #12=15 World EVR pts).

Hypothetically, Mickelson could WD from Cadillac and the OWGR Level remains the same, while Simpson could WD and the OWGR level goes down.

And IMO, at 0.11 pts, the difference in OWGR average is not that big.

Pebble Beach was one EVR point from being a level 40 (it was level 38). if one more player in the top 200 had played PB, Mickelson would have earned 2 more points, and he would be ranked #9 instead of #12. (all other factors being equal)

What are "World EVR pts"?

World EVR (Event Rating Values) points are the points assigned to players to evaluate field strength of tournaments.

#1= 45 World EVRs
#2= 37 WEVRs
#3= 32
#4= 27
#5= 24
#6= 21
#7= 20
#8= 19
#9= 18
#10= 17

The whole schedule from #1-#200 can be found here

http://dps.endavadigital.net/owgr/doc/content/OWGRPT12.pdf

Don't really agree GPB, these are perfectly tolerable imperfections of an imperfect system as far as i'm concerned There are much bigger problems to worry about... As I was trying to suggest to you in my other post, it would be a problem if it would be a systematic/frequent one, which is not the case... And in fact, although 0.11 may sound like a small number in absolute terms, well... it's all relativ as someone very famous was telling us. That number equates to more than 2% of the points these players have and that's not such a small percentage in the overall context of this system... I'm usually begining to worry when I can only see a differnce between players after the 3rd or 4th decimal point...

PD, I think the OWGR does a great job objectively quantifying something that is very subjective. That doesn't mean that I don't think it can't be improved.

I do like the fact that it stops counting players that are outside the top 200. IMO, every player adds value to the field, even if it a trivial amount. And number #210 adds more value than #963. But according to the OWGR, he doesn't.

OWGR is top heavy in it valuation, that is why tournaments like Chevron and Nedbank can be valued as much or more than tournaments like Pebble Beach. it makes the valuation somewhat self perpetuating.

One guy that I have communicated on the internet has come up with a interesting system to evaluate field strength. I liked to hear some feedback from you and others

Summing the OWGR averages of each player. And each player has a minimum of 0.05 OWGR avg.

I really like this concept, (especially it simplicity) but it does have some foreseeable problems

1. Summing the averages from #1-#50 players changes significantly depending on what month it is. January/February is typically low. September is high.

2. And if one player goes on Tiger-esque run, he could really skew the valuation.

Can be interesting (for some, and boring for others) but too much time needed to talk about all these, at the moment I'm travelling and just trying to keep in touch as I get a chance...

I'll give a vote for interesting. Can't claim to understand fully or even partially if I'm being honest but the discussion is truly fascinating in my opinion.

Thanks guys.

For those who are following Doug Ferguson on twitter, you're probably familiar with his blue beetle avatar...

Spoiler:

Here's how it was looking a few minutes ago...

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Spoiler:

Apparently he's ok...

PD, I saw one of the tweets but I didn't open the photos. Wow, glad he is OK. He loved his Bug. He saved his laptop and golf clubs.

No word about his clothes, but since all he wears his shorts pants and golf shirts, that can't be too hard to replace in Florida.

I love Luke Donald's comment about the doughnuts . . . . .

Luke Donald, doughnuts?

did not see it

Luke: Sounds like you got out of the car OK; what about the donuts on the back seat?

Duggie: Luke Donald: Low blow, although you'll notice I didn't deny it . . .

Thanks, I didn't see Luke's Tweet.

I heard this morning on Morning Drive that Cadillac groups were by OWGR ranking for the top 24.

Rory-Luke-Westy
Martin-Stricker-Simpson
Day-DJ-Charl
Mahan-Scott-Lefty
Haas-Kuch-GMac
TW-Watney-Sergio
Sneds-Bradley-Choi
Justin-Bubba-Wilson

Ryo Ishikawa no longer has to worry about a Masters Invite. A special invite has been extended to him

Politics and Business I assume, since there were no Japanese professionals in the field.

None of the entries seem to declare themselves out just yet, so the field still looks to be worth 78 pts. This is among the richest owgr fields ever outside the majors and Players. Doral was worth 78 pts in 2009 as well. Garth Mulroy from South Africa is the lowest ranked player in the field at #180.

Interesting draw for Sergio. Should give him a bit of extra impetus being out with Bawjaws.

Final count: Doral stays @78 pts with Puerto Rico @24 pts.

With a win, Ryo could jump up as high as #42.

Did you know that Nick Dougherty is now officially outside the top 1000 (#1021)?!
Well, you'll be pleased to know that a win in Colombia this week (at Barranquilla) on the CT, will lift him up back inside the top 500! He's T9 at the moment...

Welcome home pd.

It's all happening in South America this week - Nationwiders are in Chile! Being led by two blokes I've never heard of, Haley and DeForest! Carlos Franco lurking and Felipe Aguilar on a busman's holiday, dangerously below the cut line.

Good work from Ishikawa, finishing with a 67 - two more of those and you'd fancy his chances of driving down Magnolia Lane on merit.

kwinigolfer wrote:... driving down Magnolia Lane on merit.

Aaah, Magnolia Lane, great memories...! Mac was askig if I went to Augusta... I did once, but unfortunately the gates were shut when I wanted to turn down Magnolia lane... So they let me in through a side road instead...

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...and this is when I came out back on Washington Road...

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...and I may have some more, but nothing from inside the grounds of Augusta National (NO CAMERAS/NO PHONES!)

Prince, wow so cool that you have been to augusta.

When dis you join the waiting list for tickets? I heard it last opened in about 1975 or something.

PD<

What year were you at the Masters??

Two years ago, in 2010... didn't join any waiting list, got the 'badge' on the internet a couple of months before. Quite a risky (and expensive) strategy, but luckily it all worked out great.

Another exciting shot...from the parking. Arrived early so found lots of space...

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...but a bit later it looked like this...

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So, you just bought the use of someone elses badge?

I would imagine it was a little more exciting than attending the open?

kwinigolfer wrote:Welcome home pd.

It's all happening in South America this week - Nationwiders are in Chile! Being led by two blokes I've never heard of, Haley and DeForest! Carlos Franco lurking and Felipe Aguilar on a busman's holiday, dangerously below the cut line.

Good work from Ishikawa, finishing with a 67 - two more of those and you'd fancy his chances of driving down Magnolia Lane on merit.

I think DeForest may have featured at the US Open last year Kwini? Not a clue on Haley though! Good to see the Welsh dragon next to Ben Briscoe's name on the leaderboard at last; less good to see him take 6 at the last and miss the cut by a shot. Lingmerth setting himself up nicely though.

Hell of a congested leaderboard in Colombia, 6-way tie for the halfway lead, and 31 players within 4! Good to see Dougherty and Villegas Jr playing well, and also Benn Barham, would think he'd have some good advice for Jarrod Lyle.

Based on current positions after two rounds, the top 20 owgr would look like this (no change in top 5, but pretty different between 6-10):

1 Rory McIlroy
2 Luke Donald
3 Lee Westwood
4 Martin Kaymer
5 Steve Stricker
6 Adam Scott
7 Charl Schwartzel
8 Bubba Watson
9 Webb Simpson
10 Jason Day
--------------------------------------
11 Hunter Mahan
12 Dustin Johnson
13 Phil Mickelson
14 Bill Haas
15 Justin Rose
16 Matt Kuchar
17 Tiger Woods
18 Graeme McDowell
19 Keegan Bradley
20 Nick Watney
....

Woods actually dropping a place, while Ryo remains just outside the top 50 considering his T3 position after 2 rounds...

can anyone work out what donald needs to do to get his no.1 back this week, or what rory needs to not do

princedracula wrote:...
- if Rory doesn't score anything this week (which means finishing 60th or worse... surely not!), Luke needs a 3-way tie for 4th to get back to #1
- perhaps a slightly more realistic scenario... if Rory finishes outside top 10, Luke needs a solo 3rd or better to get back to #1
...

mysti, I had some pointers about that in an earlier post, just requoted here that part...

cheers