OWGR Wk 47 and OWGR Demographics 1999-2014

First topic message reminder :

Great wins by Henrik and Hideki!  and a couple MASTERS wins from Nick Cullum in the Aussie Masters and Mardan Mamat in the Manila Masters on the Asian Tour.

And Shane Lowry cracks the Top 50, but I would not reservations for Augusta quite yet.  Some golf yet to play in South Africa, Australia, Japan, and Thailand.

This is what the Top 100 should look like tomorrow.  (The Callaway Invitational does not count towards OWGR rankings, Lee Janzen is leading going into final round)

1 Rory McIlroy 11.974
2 Henrik Stenson 8.264 ===> Winner DP World Championship
3 Adam Scott 8.117
4 Bubba Watson 7.617
5 Sergio Garcia 7.031
6 Jim Furyk 7.022
7 Justin Rose 6.991
8 Jason Day 6.139
9 Rickie Fowler 5.701
10 Matt Kuchar 5.556
11 Phil Mickelson 5.043
12 Martin Kaymer 4.832
13 Billy Horschel 4.686
14 Jordan Spieth 4.644
15 Graeme McDowell 4.455
16 Hideki Matsuyama 4.421 ===> Winner Dunlop Phoenix
17 Victor Dubuisson 4.404
18 Dustin Johnson 4.147
19 Zach Johnson 4.103
20 Chris Kirk 4.001
21 Jimmy Walker 3.962
22 Hunter Mahan 3.891
23 Jamie Donaldson 3.750
24 Tiger Woods 3.603
25 Patrick Reed 3.471
26 Ian Poulter 3.439
27 Kevin Na 3.381
28 Joost Luiten 3.351
29 Ryan Moore 3.319
30 Charl Schwartzel 3.275
31 Keegan Bradley 3.181
32 Thomas Bjorn 3.110
33 Bill Haas 3.107
34 Jason Dufner 3.091
35 Brooks Koepka 3.069
36 Stephen Gallacher 3.053
37 Luke Donald 3.027
38 Steve Stricker 3.020
39 Webb Simpson 3.013
40 Ryan Palmer 2.959
41 Miguel A Jimenez 2.940
42 Lee Westwood 2.833
43 Thongchai Jaidee 2.814
44 Mikko Ilonen 2.813
45 Gary Woodland 2.769
46 Marc Leishman 2.767
47 Shane Lowry 2.713
48 Kevin Streelman 2.701
49 Brandt Snedeker 2.633
50 John Senden 2.578
===========
51 Graham Delaet 2.567
52 Brendon Todd 2.554
53 Alexander Levy 2.492
54 Koumei Oda 2.464
55 Francesco Molinari 2.459
56 Louis Oosthuizen 2.426
57 Ernie Els 2.419
58 Russell Henley 2.418
59 Jonas Blixt 2.374
60 Tommy Fleetwood 2.329
61 Tim Clark 2.250
62 Ben Martin 2.190
63 Hiroshi Iwata 2.188
64 J.B. Holmes 2.158
65 Marcel Siem 2.157
66 Kevin Stadler 2.145
67 Angel Cabrera 2.129
68 Marc Warren 2.123
69 Pablo Larrazabal 2.059
70 Charley Hoffman 2.024
71 Harris English 2.018
72 Matt Every 2.018
73 Bernd Wiesberger 2.018
74 Paul Casey 2.006
75 Matt Jones 1.992
76 Anirban Lahiri 1.925
77 George Coetzee 1.902
78 Thorbjorn Olesen 1.877
79 Cameron Tringale 1.849
80 Bae Sang-moon 1.819
81 Brian Harman 1.790
82 Brendon de Jonge 1.778
83 Danny Willett 1.756
84 Richard Sterne 1.719
85 Hideto Tanihara 1.718
86 Ross Fisher 1.693
87 Rafael Cabrera Bello 1.683
88 Geoff Ogilvy 1.657
89 Robert Streb 1.654
90 Richie Ramsay 1.653
91 Erik Compton 1.649
92 Freddie Jacobson 1.630
93 Chris Stroud 1.620
94 Steven Bowditch 1.618
95 Gonzalo Fdez-Castano 1.616
96 Romain Wattel 1.609
97 Robert Karlsson 1.606
98 Russell Knox 1.603
99 Edoardo Molinari 1.585
100 Kevin Chappell 1.581
=======
101 Tomohiro Kondo 1.580
102 Noh Seung-yul 1.579
103 Ryo Ishikawa 1.565
=====
~250 Nick Cullum 0.747 ===> Winner Aussie Masters
~446 Mardan Mamat 0.394 ===> Winner Manila Masters

===================

kwinigolfer wrote:McIlroy, Stenson, Rose, Fowler and Kaymer all confirmed for Abu Dhabi, plus a dozen more Top 60 golfers.

Looking like OWGR 50 or 52.

Glad to see Fleetwood playing.  He needs to make some hay in these Middle East events so he can qualify for the Cadillac.

Only McIlroy, Scott, Rose and Kaymer missing from Kapalua.
That's a pretty good turnout. Very glad to see that the Americans aren't taking Phil's or Tiger's approach.

Fleetwood's playing a lot of golf . . . . . . . . Quality trumps quantity Timmy.

Field for Hyundai Set...

34 players... largest field in some time... only 4 no-shows of those eligible... but they're all big names (Adam Scott, Justin Rose, Martin Kaymer, Rory McIlroy). The last 3 are all playing in Abu Dhabi this week

Should be an OWGR 44-46 rated event barring any WD's

EDIT: OOPS... looks like I was not the "early bird" on this one... :-)

First time ever . . . . . .

robopz wrote:Field for Hyundai Set...

34 players... largest field in some time... only 4 no-shows of those eligible... but they're all big names (Adam Scott, Justin Rose, Martin Kaymer, Rory McIlroy). The last 3 are all playing in Abu Dhabi this week

Should be an OWGR 44-46 rated event barring any WD's

EDIT: OOPS... looks like I was not the "early bird" on this one... :-)

Robo, check your email  I sent you two emails and there should be a spreadsheet coming with graphs.

kwinigolfer wrote:Only McIlroy, Scott, Rose and Kaymer missing from Kapalua.
That's a pretty good turnout. Very glad to see that the Americans aren't taking Phil's or Tiger's approach.

Fleetwood's playing a lot of golf . . . . . . . . Quality trumps quantity Timmy.

Who is Timmy?  

A discussion came up on another board about Jack Nicklaus and wondering how many weeks he might have been at #1 had there been an OWGR in his time...  I'd love to the OWGR folks do a backwards OWGR someday, because they have data I don't.  

But I gave it a try anyway... before I post it let me say I KNOW it's far from perfect, because I have NO way to assign different SOF's for different events... and of course it doesn't take into count Euro's (not that I think it would have mattered much in the 1962-1978 range anyway...  So here ya go...

I'll look at these on each individual player vs Nicklaus and here are the base assumptions. First I removed team events. Then I used the published OWGR 60 point scale for all regular events, 80 point scale for the Players Championship, and 100 point scale for majors. I used 2-way tie splits for all finishes inside the top-10, and 3-way tie point splits for ties outside the top-10.  These numbers use a 20 minimum divisor per year... but I'm not using a max divisor (even though it really doesn't come much into play except for Trevino, who really doesn't factor)

So in time order... here ya go...

Arnold Palmer
1962...... 1963...... 1964....... 1965
19.83..... 27.90..... 27.14..... 27.78..... Nicklaus
32.39..... 28.76..... 22.55..... 13.36..... Palmer

I've modified my earlier belief that Nicklaus would have overtaken Palmer in 1963... I now believe it would have been into 1964 because Palmer still outpointed Jack for all of 1963. My best guess is, Jack would have taken #1 a few weeks before the Masters, maybe around Doral... and Arnie might have taken it back with his Masters win that year for a very short time, but Jack probably would have taken it right back in the next two weeks. So for now... I'm going to give Jack 9 months of #1 in 1964.... or 39 weeks.

Nobody is in the running to catch Jack for the years 65, 66 & 67... so I'm going to give Jack 156 weeks for those years.

Billy Casper
1967...... 1968...... 1969...... 1970...... 1971
27.31..... 20.57..... 15.32..... 18.77..... 28.23
15.88..... 24.02..... 15.92..... 19.59..... 12.91

I was starting to think that perhaps Casper might not have caught Jack in the 1968-70 period, but now I'm sure he did because Casper had better averages for 3 years running. They were so close it was probably a back and forth situation... but my guess is Casper would have been in there at #1 for a good year and a half total from 1968 into very early 1971. For purposes of easy math... I'm going to split 68-70 equally between the Jack and Casper at 78 weeks each. And I'm going to give all of 1971 to Jack for 52 weeks (even though some of Caspers #1 time was probably very early in '71)

Johnny Miller
1973...... 1974...... 1975
32.84..... 21.97..... 29.85
15.18..... 25.76..... 20.54

Miller get's hurt just a little bit in my new calculations because I've got the Players at an 80 point event, and Jack played it well, Miller poorly. On the face of the above, it would appear as though Johnny wouldn't have taken #1 because of Jacks stronger years on either side of Millers 1974 year. But because of the way events space out... Miller so strong the 2nd half of '74 when Jack wasn't playing much, and then into the first few months of '75 with 3 more wins, I'm thinking Miller had a really good chance to take #1, but only for maybe a month or two before Jack came right back with some late Feb high finishes and then winning '75 Doral. But still... it wouldn't be much time... So I'm going to give Jack all of 1974 and Miller only 4 weeks in 1975... and Jack the remaining 48 for 1975.

Nobody in the running to challenge Jack in 1976.

Tom Watson
1976...... 1977...... 1978...... 1979..... 1980
20.07..... 24.84..... 22.88..... 07.16..... 15.00
09.16..... 26.30..... 22.99..... 25.96..... 30.10

I originally thought Jack would have certainly taken over #1 sometime in 1977, but now I'm thinking it probably wasn't til the end of 1978. A couple of reasons... Jack was also playing Australian Open's in that frame, winning twice in 76 and 78 (Aus Opens are not included in my data above)... and with those, Watson and Jack are virtually tied for 77 & 78. But with the timing and how depreciation works... with Tom playing stronger at the end end of 78 and probably took #1 with maybe 3 months left in the year... So for purposes of estimating now... I'm giving Jack 9 months of 1978, and Watson takes it from there... Jack never challenges again.

Other players...

Tony Lema - I thought he might have a chance there in 64 range... but he wasn't close only once getting his average above 20 (20.94 in 1964)

Lee Trevino - His problem was he played so many events, and played poorly in about a dozen a year, it just killed his average. Even with the advantage Lee would have gotten from playing so much over the max divisor there for a while... his average would have likely only gone barely over 20 for a short time, but that would have been in the 1972-73 period when Jack was at 28 to 36.

Gary Player - He got hurt by a minimum divisor, but even removing it... he wan't consistent enough in any given year to challenge...

So all told... this is my most "recent" total of Weeks at #1 for Jack... Again this is subject to modification once I work the detail on when Jack for sure took over from Palmer, dealing with the Casper period, the short Miller period... and figuring more exact as to when Watson too over.

39 weeks - 1964
156 weeks - 1965-1967
78 weeks - 1968-1970
208 weeks - 1971-1974
48 weeks - 1975
104 weeks - 1976-77
39 weeks - 1978

672 Total weeks.... could be 650-700 is my guess of a reasonable range accounting for error in my above. Astonishing to me how close it comes to Tiger's 683 weeks...

Tammy, Timmy, Tommy, Tummy.

But news on the South Korean diplomatic front is that Sang-Moon Bae confirms he's playing Kapalua despite the apparent conscription order. He's pursuing relief from the military draft and plans to play in the US while his appeal against conscription is being processed. Still no word on how the PGA Tour etc would respond.

Makes one wonder how some of our European or American favourites might fare if called up. Still rumours persisting that Tiger Woods first damaged his leg working out with the US Navy Seals . . . . . .

Left, right, left, right, Keep up Lumpy, Pick up the pace Stadler


robo,
How close are your assumptions and conclusions to those put forward by GPB?

kwinigolfer wrote:
robo,
How close are your assumptions and conclusions to those put forward by GPB?

I'm in contact with GPB on this, and he's capable of doing more indepth than I am... but from what I just got in some emails from him... we have some differences in how we got there... but are coming out about the same place in the end... I'm at 672 weeks, suggesting a 650-700 week range is reasonable... and I think he's in the high 600's range as well... I just emailed him and asked him to post his research...

Robo:  I put my findings on the Year End OWGR thread.  Its down below, as it was never made a "sticky" thread

In a few weeks, the "sticky" JoBurg thread will once again be relevant. 

Here is what I got per year, from 1963-1980


YEAR.. JN ...Others Comments
1963 ..12 ...40 …Arnold Palmer, Jack got the #1 spot after winning Masters..AP, JN traded #1 spot 4 times
1964.. 45 ...07 …Arnold Palmer, traded spots 3 times (Feb, Jun and Sept).
1965 ..52 ...0
1966 ..52 ...0
1967 ..38 ..14 …Arnold Palmer Arnold got #1 spot in April and kept it for 14 weeks until Jack won the US Open
1968 ..53 ...0
1969 ..18 ...34 …Billy Casper took #1 with a T2 at the Masters….held it most of the year until December
1970 ..38 ...14 …Billy Casper…traded spots a total of 14 times in 1970 and early part of 1971.
1971 ..42 ...10 ….7 wks Casper (before Jack won the PGA which was played in Feb), 3 wks Trevino  in November)
1972 ..52 ...0
1973 ..52 ...0
1974 ..53 ...0
1975 ..42 ..10 …Johnny Miller before the Nicklaus won the Masters
1976 ..52 0
1977 ..52 0
1978 ..37 15 …Tom Watson
1979 ..1 ..51 …First winless year in Jack's career…Nicklaus was number in Week1
1980 ..0 ..52 …Watson's era


Total 691 for Nicklaus, 


In the late 1960s, Nicklaus, Palmer and Caspers all went into semi slumps (Palmer's was a big slump).  This was the time when the PGA was being divided into the PGA Tour and the PGA of America...which was probably some heavy baggage for all three of the premier players of the 1960's