OWGR - Week #12

Well, well, well, it's been a while... But here we are, finally, we can say again, congratulations to Tiger Woods for a pretty emphatic victory!!! Great to have him back in the winning circle. And it's also welcome back to the top 10, climbing all the way up to #6 in the world! I wonder where will he be at the end of the year...? Great results for McDowell and for Poults, giving them much needed boosts and lifting them up to #13 and #24, respectively. And it's welcome to the top 100 for John Rollins!

It wasn't to be for either Ernie or Matteo this week in terms of their Masters qualification, but they came quite close, and both deserve praise for their late efforts. Ernie still has a last chance next week when he will have to win the tornament in Houston, while Matteo still has a lot of time ahead of him for this sort of stuff. And Ben Crane can finally make his hotel reservations for Augusta... (no rapping with Bubba on the 16th tee there, please)

Congratulations to Michael Hoey for an excellent royal win in Morocco, which brings him up to a carreer best #74 in the rankings.
And finally, well done also to the American Casey Wittenberg, winner on the NW Tour in Louissiana and to the Aussie Nick Cullen, winner in Indonesia on the OneAsia Tour, both enjoying significant jumps of over 300 places, somewhere around #310 and #330, respectively.

The OWGR table after week #12 should look like this:

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

Fascinating weekend, pd, Ernie's might look like he's treading water but is actually very close to a big breakthrough!

At the end of the day, Ernie and Matteo knew what they had to do and came up short. If either were to receive a "sympathy" invite I would give it to Manassero but hope that doesn't happen.

Poulter and McDo will be looking at the points they earned and feel like they're treading water, perhaps Ryan Moore too, but that's the way it is when you're on the slide.

Great performance by Woods, T3 on the day and you can't ask for much more than that. Convincing win!

Tiger is now number 2 in terms of points gained in 2012 on 106.83, behind R-macs 170.96.

He has also only played about 33/34 times in the current qualification window meaning his divisor will stay at 40 for a long time yet. So getting his total points to 400 would mean an average of 10, currently enough to get to number 1. He would need another 176.2 (plus what he loses through attrition) points to get to the 400 mark. At his current 2012 rate of 17.8 points per event he will reach the 10 point average in about ten events. If he wins a biggie or two a lot sooner.

A normal schedule for him for the next 6 months might look like this;

Masters
Quail hollow
Players
Memorial
Us open
At and t
Open
Bridgestone
Pga

So depending on his play we could be looking at an assault on the number 1 spot by the Bridgestone or the PGA.



I also notice that all the Japanese players seem to be on 0 points gained for 2012. Is this down to their season not starting? If so does this provide some justification for inviting Japanese players to the masters as they do not have the same chances early season as others do to qualify on merit?

An early owgr count for the Houston event would put it at about 50 pts (down from 52 last year), with the Sicilian Open being well subsidised at 24 pts.

Hope Lee is gonna do well in TX, although win or lose, it won't make any difference to his ranking position going into the Masters (stuck at #3).
Four players could reach #4 with a win this week (Stricker, Schwartzel, McDowell, Mahan)...

P.S. Mac, the Japanese Tour always begins its proceedings the week after Masters

Prince

I reckon tiger gets to about 8 points if wins the masters, so maybe it will make a difference if lee drops below that mark over the next two events?

Mac, I did a quick estimate and Tiger can actually get to #3 with a win in Augusta, but Lee will have to earn less than ~19 pts in these two events (Houston and Masters)... That would equate for example to a solo 3rd at Houston, or a 6-7th finish at Masters, or a top 12 finish in each of these events....

Jacobson, Chappell and Gillis among early withdrawals from the SHO.

McLaren wrote:
I also notice that all the Japanese players seem to be on 0 points gained for 2012. Is this down to their season not starting? If so does this provide some justification for inviting Japanese players to the masters as they do not have the same chances early season as others do to qualify on merit?

I am glad you asked that!

I have been looking at the calendar bias of the OWGR. Because of the Tour schedules, Tours get over valued and under-valued depending on the month. Over the period of 104 weeks, each OWGR point earned is going to be discounted be an average of 56.25%.

The Japanese Tour is Exhibit A. The Japanese Tour goes from mid April to early December. In mid December, Japanese players are going to tend be higher ranked in the OWGR than they are in late March.

The Japanese Tour bottoms out on Week 19 at 49.0% and maxes out at week 49 at 67.0%.
The USPGAT bottoms out on Week 7 at 51.0% at maxes out at week 39 at 61.1%.
The EuroT bottoms out of week 14 at 53.5% at maxes out at week 33 at 59.7%

What is the point of all this? Players rankings are used each week to evaluate the field strength, but other than that each week's ranking is relatively unimportant. EXCEPT, on weeks like this one, when Masters Invitations are sent out.

OWGR important weeks:

Week 0: End of Year Masters Invitations
Week 6: Accenture Match Play
Week 8: WGC-Cadillac
Week 12: Masters Invites
Week 16: Players Championship exemptions
Week ~20: US Open, BMW PGA and Open Championship exemptions
Week ~22: US Open exemptions
Week 31: WGC Bridgestone and PGA Championship exemptions

Other than those weeks, the OWGR ranking is only important in the field evaluation.

Here is the Calendar bias for those weeks:

Wk USPGAT EUROT Japan
0 52.8% 56.1% 64.4%
6 51.2% 54.5% 58.7%
8 51.3% 54.2% 56.6%
12 53.6% 54.3% 52.3%
16 54.8% 54.9% 49.9%
20 56.0% 53.9% 51.8%
22 55.9% 55.1% 53.7%
31 58.2% 57.4% 52.8%

My calculations are showing that the calendar bias works in favor of the EuroT (as compared to the PGAT) through the Masters. After the Masters, the bias shifts to the PGAT and shifts back to EuroT right after the WGC-HSBC.



***Assumptions***

1. These percents are based OWGR valuation of each official tournament on schedule.
2. 2011 Tournament calendar extrapolated for two consecutive year.
3. Included CIMB, HSBC unofficial tournaments for USPGAT. Did not include Chevron.

I'll be glad to share my data if anyone wants to question the results.

And an interesting phenomena in the OWGR calculations is readily apparent this week.

Two years ago, PMick won the 2010 Masters. That win is actually hurting his OWGR average. His average is 4.68 with the 2010 Masters in his resume. If he had never played the 2010 Masters, his average would be 4.74.

And yes, I realize that this phenomena is all relative. The 2010 Masters is hurting everybody's average, well at least those that have played in 52 or fewer events in the last two years.

GPB

Any chance you could explain all that in more simple terms? I thought the points degraded way more than 50% over the cycle.

McLaren:

Oh it does, but overall, the average degradation is 56.25 when you take a straight average of every week in the two year time period.

Week 1 at 100%
Week 2 at 100%
Week 3 at 100%
...
Week 12 at 100%
Week 13 at 100%
Week 14 at 98.9%
Week 15 at 97.8%
...
Week 102 at 3.3%
Week 103 at 2.2%
Week 104 at 1.1%

Average 56.25%

Simple answer is that although the rankings work in essence, ie. The scoring, however the problem is that two years is too long. One year would be a better yardstick of actual form and consistency, even if points from two years ago are worth proportionally less.

Sorry, I am maybe being a little dumb here, but it was this bit I didn't get;

Here is the Calendar bias for those weeks:

Wk USPGAT EUROT Japan
0 52.8% 56.1% 64.4%
6 51.2% 54.5% 58.7%
8 51.3% 54.2% 56.6%
12 53.6% 54.3% 52.3%
16 54.8% 54.9% 49.9%
20 56.0% 53.9% 51.8%
22 55.9% 55.1% 53.7%
31 58.2% 57.4% 52.8%

How are you enjoying the auld reekie weather Mac? Still worried about global warming?

Very nice weather, enjoyed a wonderful round at Gullane on Sunday. I also hope to take a day off this week while the weather is still hot to play somewhere.

Of course I worry about global warming, or more like a change in the greenhouse effect. It is interesting; I am reading a book on the history of Scotland and in the period over which humans have lived on the land we know as Scotland the climate has had several major changes. In and out of a mini ice age, a move to a warmer climate up until about 700 years ago and then short period of colder harsher weather again. The link between these basic economies and the change in climate is fascinating.

What I am not saying is that the current change is just part of a cycle. We may be in a cycle of warmer weather for whatever reason, but I have no doubt the increased levels of co2 humans put into the atmosphere are accelerating the greenhouse effect. How could they not?

Why worry about it Mac? The climate has always changed, it isn't necessarily harmful to the planet, we just have to adapt to it.

They used to grow grapes in the midlands in Roman times, human influence?

McLaren wrote:Sorry, I am maybe being a little dumb here, but it was this bit I didn't get;

No problem, sometimes I don’t write so well. Lets take a real simple example of what I talking about. The OWGR bias as of year end 2011 of the Major championships

The 2010 Masters is worth 15.2 pts (100 pts * 15.21%) to the winner
The 2010 US Open is 26.1 pts to the winner.
The 2010 Open Champ. is worth 30.4 to the winner
The 2010 PGA Champ. is worth 34.8 to the winner
2011 Masters win is worth 71.7 points to the winner
the 2011 US Open is worth 81.6 pts to the winner.
The 2011 Open Championship is worth 87.0 pts to the winner.
The 2011 PGA Championship is worth 91.3 pts to the winner.

To calculate the calendar bias for the end of year for the Majors, Take the total of net values and divided by the gross values, in this case, 439.1/800 or 54.9%.

Compare that to this week, the net points are worth 343.5 pts, or 43.9%.

The calendar bias of the majors bottoms out next week at 42.8% and peaks the Monday right after the PGA at 60.43.

Now imagine that I did that for every tournament on the 2011 PGAT, the EuroT, and the Japan PGAT. With the corresponding OWGR level for those tournaments. And those would be the values that I posted above for some important weeks of the year.

Clear as mud yet?

Thanks I see what you are getting at now.


Back to an earlier point about his masters win now hurting phil, is it not better to consider how points effect a player over the whole lifetime of the points?

McLaren wrote:Back to an earlier point about his masters win now hurting phil, is it not better to consider how points effect a player over the whole lifetime of the points?

Certainly a major win helps a player ~100 weeks out 104 weeks.

My point is that a win in a major should never hurt a players OWGR average, never. It either should have no effect or a positive effect.

I do like the depreciation aspect of the OWGR, I just happen to think the points should depreciate from 100% to 20% and then the 104th week could be a balloon payment. It would give a player an opportunity to defend his points with a 5th place finish or better.

That's a lot of percentages you've calculated there GPB... The point about Phil's average being hurt by that major win in 2010 (btw, his average difference is 4.68 w/ vs 4.71 w/o) reminded me of a similar comment made sometime last year by some US player (one who obviously didn't like the system very much). There is a bit of an argument there, of course, although considering all the 'sweet pleasures' that players get out of winning a major (on top of the 20+ subsidised points that each Major winner gets by default), this little bit of 'hurt' would hardly count. If they are bothered by this, they should probably spare a thought for those at the other end, who missed the cut in a major and get (deservedly so) nil points in return. Take for example Rory's case at the same 2010 Masters, his 0 points for missing the cut then, not only cost him perpetual owgr average 'hurt' over each of the 104 weeks of the owgr cycle, but in this particular case, if he didn't play that Masters at all, he would never have lost his #1 spot to Luke and would still be #1 now!
Not to mention the 'hurt' caused to at least one unfortunate spectator at that Masters edition, who went there with one of his goals being to follow and cheer for him, only to find out on that Saturday that he wasn't there anylonger...

kwinigolfer wrote:Jacobson, Chappell and Gillis among early withdrawals from the SHO.

I see there are now 7 on that w/d list... still, all these don't look to be 'worthy' enough to affect the 50 points (not yet anyway)...

PD,

once the excel spreadsheet was setup, it was pretty easy using the table function in excel.

My point of doing the OWGR bias was to illustrate that a key times during the year, the Euro Tour has a significant advantage over the PGAT.

End of Year
Match Play
Cadillac

The Tours are about equal at

2 weeks prior to Masters
Players
US Open/BOC Exemptions

And the PGAT has a significant advantage

Bridgestone
PGA

========

And as far the 2010 Masters example, Rory deserves to be penalized for the trunkslammer. as does anyone who misses the cut. But a missed cut from 100 weeks ago counts just as much to the formulas as a missed cut from last week. While a win from 100 weeks ago has been discounted ~96%.

Freddie Jacobson and his 8 EVRs WD from Houston (7 World and 1 HomeTour). That could impact the OWGR evaluation.

GPB,
I don't really get the point here or what alternative would be better?
Every tournament you play "hurts" 100 weeks after you play it whether it is a Major win or a missed cut.............that is true all year round though and the only obvious cure (and i am not being flippant) is not to play any tournaments at all!!

Every win HAS to be discounted as time moves on for this system to work, unless they decide a Major Win for example always retains the 100 points, and if that's the case, when those 100 points go, a persons points average would dramatically drop.......................

John Cregan:

I think the points should be discounted to no less than 20% of their original value.

On the last week, they disappear completely. analogous to a balloon payment in mortgage loan ina 5 year adjustable rate mortgage loan.

If the system is kept a two year time period, I would keep the points at 100% for 24 weeks, then 1% (of gross) discount each week until it gets to the 104th week. then the points are loss (and the tournament).

I prefer one year period, Points kept at 100% for 26 week, then 3% per week for 25 weeks, and the balance on the 52nd week.

GPB,Cheers GPB,
I have no issue with your revised 2 year period system.........it sounds good to me.

Personally, i don't like a 1 year system at all, would affect a player getting(or playing through) an injury, plus the movement of the rankings would be too severe and you would have way too much change potentially in the No. 1 spot, which would, IMO, devalue the World No. 1 spot...............

McLaren wrote:
I also notice that all the Japanese players seem to be on 0 points gained for 2012. Is this down to their season not starting? If so does this provide some justification for inviting Japanese players to the masters as they do not have the same chances early season as others do to qualify on merit?

I haven't really understood why people are so against the Ishikawa invite on here, I mean he's been practically the highest rated not already qualified in both lists - it's not like they're inviting someone with John Daly levels of form :P

My issue is not so much against Ryo Ishikawa, it is with the OWGR and its evaluation of the Japanese tour.

I think OWGR heavily over-values the Japanese Tour. and as such Japanese players from the JPGA are over-rated in the OWGR.

For the past 5-7 years, Japanese players have consistently under-performed their ranking when playing against World Class Players. Ryo Ishikawa's T4 at last year's Bridgestone is really the only notable high finish by a Japanese JPGA player in very long time. Other highly ranked Japan players have similar or worse results.

I think the JPGA is about 20% overvalued, it should be close to the Challenge and NW Tours and as such, the players OWGR avg is about 20% too high. Assuming a 20% overvaluation, Ryo's avg would be about 2.15 and in the high 60's.

IMO, Business and Politics were the only reasons for Ryo;s invite. I think the CEO's at ANGC do a lot of business with Japan.

And FWIW. I think Ryo. I think he is an exciting a young player and Golf would benefit if Ryo was a World Class player. I hope he validates his invite by getting into contention next week.

lastdamnation

Was that not part of tiger's six in a row?

LastDamnation,
My issue is not with Ryo receiving one invitation, it's receiving TWO, when Manassero, for instance, has never received one. And I don't think it's helpful when Billy Payne says it's for commercial interests in Asia.

Anyway, water under the bridge for now, unless it happens for a third time!

kwinigolfer wrote:LastDamnation,
My issue is not with Ryo receiving one invitation, it's receiving TWO, when Manassero, for instance, has never received one. And I don't think it's helpful when Billy Payne says it's for commercial interests in Asia.

Anyway, water under the bridge for now, unless it happens for a third time!

But no Chinese in the field.. Too bad for them they don't have funky hair-style and slick outfit...

I would say Ryo deserves an(other) invitation for his unbelievable gesture last year with regard to donating entire year's winnings to tsunami relief. The gripe I have is that this wasn't the stated reason, and instead it had something to do with commercial interest.

By no means am I dismissing philanthropy and altruism as a character trait, but it is not a reason to invite a player to the Masters.

If it was, JP McManus and Bill Gates would be invited to play.

GPB,

Agreed. This "invite" damages the integrity of the tournament, as does, IMO, the "invite" to 6 or 7 Amateurs as well as guys like Woosnam, Lyle & Mize, especially given the small field(95 or so)..........................

I agree with all those points of view on Ryo. The other way I look at all this is that it is not necessarily doing a great deal of good to Ishikawa himself, in the greater scheme of things. Not sure if the sort of carry on that accompanies him everywhere he goes is helping him to progress his golfing carreer to the next level... As we can see there's already a certain image and reputation that is slowly building up around him and that's probably fine as long as he manages to parallel all that soon with some really strong /significant/consistent performances on the golf course. He's a very young lad and I'm not sure if we can even blame him directly for this or rather his management team and people who are surrounding him. Anyway, now he's in the Masters and I'm wishing him well for next week and lets hope he can prove as soon as possible that there is an exceptional golfer in there afterall...

As I've said, SHO was still hanging on to the 50 points after all those W/Ds, but now it's getting a bit confusing due to Levin's W/D... Not sure if this happened before or after the cutline to have him included or not in the official starting field (he does apper on the LB, but...). If he won't be included, then it's almost certain that the tournament will slip into the 48 pts bracket. Will confirm later on as things become clearer.......

... hold on, I see now that he has a scorecard with some holes completed, so then he will be included, which means we should still have a 50 pts SHO afterall...

pd,
You saw that Kirk bailed out?

Yep, accounted for him as well...

Nice field in a fortnight in Malaysia, Kings Charl and Louis, Kaymer, Quiros, Dyson, and many over #50-ish European Tour players, Rock, Matteo, Lewis, Coetzee, C-Bello, Noren, Colsaerts, Grace, Larrazabal, etc.

Isn't Malaysia is a co-Sanctioned event w/ Asian tour? Is so it should be heavily populated by the top players of the Asian Tour and get a near full compliment of Home Tour Points.

It is actually just what the 50-80 OWGR players need in order to get inside the top 60 and a US Open exemption.

With Dyson, Charl and Louis going, I am surprised Chubby didn't send Westy as well.

didnt realise dyson is in the chubby camp. kinda surprised for some reason not quite sure why!

Final count confirming Houston @50 pts and of course, the Sicilian Open @24.

Not sure Mahan knows that he can become #4 in the world if he wins this!? Oosty could move to #22 with a win, while the young Dane, Olesen, could just squeeze into the top 100 if he closes the deal in Sicily...

The top20 is getting congested with in-form yanks... Seems they are giving the top Europeans a run for their money....