OWGR-Feb 2015 Are World Class Golfers Getting Younger?

First topic message reminder :

Congratulations to Rory, Brooks and Matthew Goggin for winning their respective events on the Euro, PGAT and Web-com tours.  Rory increases his lead on #2 Stenson to over 4.00 points, Brooks gets to #19 and Goggin goes from #709 to #386 in the OWGR rankings.

One of the announcers yesterday said the top golfers are getting younger, so I decided to look at the year end rankings from 1999, 2004, 2009 and todays rankings to see if that was true.  Look for a summary in the next post.

But first:  Here are the rankings as of this morning.  (Bolded Players are already qualified for the 2015 Masters.  All four of the 2015 winners on the PGATour were already qualified for the Masters)

1 Rory McIlroy 11.66
2 Henrik Stenson 7.62
3 Bubba Watson 7.41
4 Adam Scott 6.95
5 Justin Rose 6.25
6 Sergio Garcia 6.15
7 Jim Furyk 6.05
8 Jason Day 5.64
9 Jordan Spieth 5.52
10 Matt Kuchar 5.18
11 Martin Kaymer 5.11
12 Rickie Fowler 5.10
13 Jimmy Walker 4.79
14 Hideki Matsuyama 4.44
15 Victor Dubuisson 4.20
16 Patrick Reed 4.20
17 Billy Horschel 4.18
18 Phil Mickelson 3.99
19 Brooks Koepka 3.84
20 Graeme McDowell 3.81
21 Zach Johnson 3.70
22 Chris Kirk 3.61
23 Dustin Johnson 3.54
24 Bill Haas 3.38
25 Hunter Mahan 3.38
26 Jamie Donaldson 3.31
27 Charl Schwartzel 3.22
28 Kevin Na 3.20
29 Ryan Palmer 3.16
30 Lee Westwood  3.15
31 Stephen Gallacher 3.10
32 Ian Poulter 3.02
33 Ryan Moore 2.98
34 Joost Luiten 2.94
35 Keegan Bradley 2.94
36 Thomas Bjorn 2.69
37 Thongchai Jaidee 2.67
38 Webb Simpson 2.64
39 Gary Woodland 2.61
40 Luke Donald 2.60
41 Jason Dufner 2.60
42 Miguel Jimenez 2.58
43 Louis Oosthuizen 2.56
44 Shane Lowry 2.53
45 Branden Grace 2.53
46 Marc Leishman 2.51
47 Danny Willett 2.49
48 Bernd Wiesberger 2.44
49 Alexander Levy 2.42
50 Marc Warren 2.41
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51 Mikko Ilonen 2.40
52 Steve Stricker 2.38
53 Russell Henley 2.38
54 Brendon Todd 2.37
55 Tommy Fleetwood 2.35
56 Tiger Woods 2.35
57 John Senden 2.34
58 Francesco Molinari 2.33
59 Graham DeLaet 2.24
60 Kevin Streelman 2.22
61 Tim Clark 2.22
62 Marcel Siem 2.19
63 Brandt Snedeker 2.19
64 Koumei Oda 2.19
65 Ross Fisher 2.11
66 Ernie Els 2.10
67 Charley Hoffman 2.10
68 Jonas Blixt 2.08
69 Ben Martin 2.05
70 Harris English 1.94
71 Andy Sullivan 1.94
72 J.B. Holmes 1.94
73 Anirban Lahiri 1.92
74 Hiroshi Iwata 1.91
75 Pablo Larrazabal 1.86
76 Robert Streb 1.82
77 Kevin Stadler 1.80
78 Angel Cabrera 1.80
79 Sang-Moon Bae 1.78
80 Paul Casey 1.76
81 George Coetzee 1.76
82 Matt Jones 1.75
83 Matt Every 1.72
84 Justin Thomas 1.70
85 Shingo Katayama 1.69
86 Brendon de Jonge 1.68
87 Brian Harman 1.67
88 Thorbjorn Olesen 1.66
89 Gary Stal 1.62
90 Shawn Stefani 1.60
91 Steven Bowditch 1.57
92 Cameron Tringale 1.57
93 Russell Knox 1.56
94 Tomohiro Kondo 1.53
95 Scott Piercy 1.53
96 Hideto Tanihara 1.53
97 Erik Compton 1.50
98 Seung-Yul Noh 1.49
99 Geoff Ogilvy 1.48
100 Hennie Otto 1.47
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101 Rafael Cabrera Bello 1.46
102 Freddie Jacobson 1.45
103 Richie Ramsay 1.45
104 Emiliano Grillo 1.45
105 Andrew Johnston 1.43

Nice win by Aussie Andrew Dodt, gets to about 127th in the ranking

While Jaidee distances himself out of the Top 50 Bubble Scrum, Jimenez is now right in the middle of the Top 50 Bubble Scrum with his T7 (w/ 3 others).  Currently 43th w/o any Pebble Beach results factored in.  

Jason Dufner is not qualified for the Cadillac yet, and it looks like he will be falling out of the top 50 either this week or next (and not playing Los Angeles).  Projected 48th before PB results.  He will probably have to back door an invite at Honda.  (but losing one in the divisor next week).

Luke sitting at 44th before PB results.

JB Holmes can clinch an invite to Cadillac with a good round, at #53 right now.

Levy is qualified for Cadillac, but he is not qualified for the Masters and he is definitely falling to at least 52nd in the rankings.

GPB,
I think we'll likely have another circumstance a la Phoenix with one or two "committed" players being bumped out of Riviera . . . .

Would think JB did enough, and hope that Nick Watney is BACK!

Yep, Prugh, Taylor, and Prugh definitely were too low on the totem pole to get into LA.

But w/ 144 players, a few of the web-commers will get bumped out.

Not quite as bad a week for the webbies getting into Riviera as I might have thought... last year it went 13 into the webbie category (via SE, top-10 prior event and priority... this year I thought replacing the spot for the Match Play it might be less... but not so.

As it stands now...

2 webbies are in via SE (Homa, Thomas)
3 are in via Web.com leading money winner cat (Hadwin, Fathauer, Ortiz)
3 are in via Top-10 (Prugh, Curran, Gonzales)
10 are in via web.com priority order. (Finau, Swafford, Gomez, Peterson, Bllair, Lingmerth, Barber, Knost, Reifers, Putnam)

That's 18 webbies in as of now...

However, the current field is at already at 144 including the above, but there's one unrestricted SE yet to be handed out and 4 Monday qualifiers yet to identify. That puts 5 of those 18 spots (Lingmerth, Barber, Knost, Reifers & Putnam) at risk of being bumped from the field

It would be a double whammy for Knost if he gets bumped . . . . . . unfair really, and something the Tour should have a look at I would think.

Vicky Duby missing out on Riviera - he's going to run out of tournament opportunities. Time to review le arithmetic Vic.

And Cejka and Herman have been bumped.

Robo:  Any idea how, as Rotoworld words it, Davis Love is a late entry to the field.

I copied the field from PGATour on Saturday and DL III was not part of the published field.

I wonder if they have special Geezer flight.

kwinigolfer wrote:Vicky Duby missing out on Riviera - he's going to run out of tournament opportunities. Time to review le arithmetic Vic.

And Cejka and Herman have been bumped.

Doobie is very peculiar.  I am not about to figure out his plan.

Maybe he is on "leave of absence" ?

GPB wrote:Robo:  Any idea how, as Rotoworld words it, Davis Love is a late entry to the field.

I copied the field from PGATour on Saturday and DL III was not part of the published field.

I wonder if they have special Geezer flight.

No special geezer rights. 5:00 Friday ET is the first of two deadlines. But there is a second one for players competing in the current event. They get the right to commit within the 30 minutes after the completion of play on Friday, regardless of what time on Friday that might be. (regardless of what round it is or if the round is complete or not)

As it turned out Davis did in fact commit Fri PM after the first deadline (from which the initial field is published) but before the second. But the PGA Tour offices were already closed so it didn't get listed immediately. In such circumstances, ordinarily such entries wouldn't necessarily be listed until the following Monday when the offices open. But in this particular case the offices were to be closed on Monday for a holiday and one of the member commitment staff came in Sunday and made the additions.  

The only way around the hard and fast "after Friday play concludes" deadline (for a member) would be to get an unrestricted Sponsors exemption.... as the 2 restricted webbie and 2 restricted member SE's are made prior to the field being published on Friday (and requests for those due in well prior to that Friday anyway). Monday Open qualifying isn't open to them either as the deadline for that is with the local PGA Section at 5:00 PM local time on the Friday preceding the event (no extension).

Top Fifty watch.

Here are the projected standings after this week, before Hero/NTO results are posted  (courtesy Prince Dracula)

Spoiler:

Highlighted players are already qualified for Cadillac.

Remember that there will also be R2D and FedEx qualifiers . . . . . . Danny Willett (15th in the World according to Sagarin), Bernd and Robert Streb will be certainties, plus about half a dozen others.

In the OWGR, Danny Willet has gone from ~123rd to ~50th in the rankings in the last 52 weeks.

And in the previous year (Feb 2013 to Feb 2014) he went from 84th to 123rd in the rankings.

That tells me that if the OWGR was a one year system like Sagarin Rankings, the OWGR would be ranking Willett higher than the 50th he is right now.  Probably around 30th.

Sagarin valuing Willett so highly tells me that there is no bias against the European Tour.

Didn't say Sagarin was biased, just said it's a flawed measurement, and shouldn't be used as a benchmark for any further thesis.
Completely up to you if you think Willett is in the Top 15 or 30 golfers in the world. He earned his current ranking largely on points earned in an event which most of us feel shouldn't have received owgr points. Stupidity compounded.

Ranking systems by definition are not really biased.  They just rank on a set of published criteria, and only by understanding those criteria can you understand what the ranking means.  None of the systems in golf really tell you who the "best player in the world" is, because "best" is a somewhat personal and subjective measure.  

At one end of the spectrum might be a meaningless measure - the score your name gets in Scrabble (so Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Kafelnikov would rank pretty high), and at the other end might be a hugely accurate but ultimately very short lived measure - like who won the last tournament played.  Any ranking system devised will form a compromise of rewarding talent, winning, consistency, longevity, fitness/health and luck.

In my mind at least, any ranking system in golf should be based over about 2 - 3 years.  This seems reasonable given the span of the average golf career.  It should factor winning slightly higher than just doing well, as given golf is such a game of mental strength, getting it over the line quite often should be rated a little bit higher than just doing well most weeks.  It should factor in Majors to keep them as Majors and because there is greater pressure involved in winning a Major (see mental strength). Clearly it has to factor in field strength for obvious reasons. After that, to quote TW, it is what it is.

The issue is what you use that ranking for.  It's been decided to use the OWGR as qualification into a set of events.  So if you want to play in those events, you need to tailor your schedule, tactics, training and game to maximise your ranking points.  Some would argue that it's unfair as qualifying and playing in those events keeps your ranking up.  But a different ranking system would produce a similar effect, albeit potentially with a slightly different set of players.  But the better players would tailor their schedule, tactics, training and game to maximise ranking points under those criteria instead.

Of course any ranking system can and arguably should be manipulated to some degree (through field strength calculations and subsidies) to support a set of wider, disparate and geographically diverse tournaments for the greater and long term benefit of the game.

Yep I'm at work, a bit bored and having a coffee.  #onehandedtyping

All true dat!


Pleased to see Cejka in the Riviera field, possibly instead of Appleby (now confirmed), but not sure. No effect on owgr presumably.

Cejka seems to have been around for eons. I remember him playing at the Dunhill 20 years ago when I worked on the scoreboard.

super_,
Sounds about right, turned pro in 1989, first Challenge Tour win in 1991. Had some good (better anyway) results, seems to play well in California so hope he has another good week.
He'll be subject to the reshuffle this week so every dollar earned helps towards that.

FWIW, Nedbank results count for Sagarin rankings too, as does World Challenge.

And once again, you are taking what I say out of context.  I didn't say that Willett is a top 15 (or even Top 30) player.  I said in the OWGR he is trending towards a top 30 ranking.  That is a long from me saying he is top 30 player.

However, take a look at Net Points earned from year end 2014.

Net Points Earned (Sagarin's Willett ranking is making more and more sense)

1	Rory	McIlroy	222.659
4	Bubba	Watson	186.834
10	Rickie	Fowler	151.272
9	Jordan	Spieth	134.85
12	Martin	Kaymer	112.979
23	Patrick	Reed	107.816
25	Kevin	Na	103.056
13	Billy	Horschel	96.992
20	Chris	Kirk	89.985
34	Brooks	Koepka	89.937
53	Alexander	Levy	89.7
67	Hiroshi	Iwata	80.378
54	Brendon	Todd	76.245
7	Jim	Furyk	73.214
5	Sergio	Garcia	69.519
42	Ryan	Palmer	69.249
66	J.B.	Holmes	67.823
21	Jimmy	Walker	64.624
99	Fabrizio	Zanotti	61.743
50	Danny	Willett	58.066

GPB,
Why do you take things so personally? I merely said it's up you how you rate Willett, or Joe Blow.
I'm merely saying that using Sagarin as a baseline is, which you didn't but the moronic prosecutor for bias towards Europe ("jalnichols") did, is absurd and will never yield credible results.
Quibble with Sagarin and "jalnichols", not me.

However, I'm sure you see as clearly as I do the flaws in using comparable owgr points year-on-year as a "trend"; they're more a reflection on their previous year, rather than indicative of a current trend, Kevin Na a leading example, Zanotti too.

If you wouldn't put words in my mouth, I wouldn't take them so personally.

And there is nothing wrong with using Sagarin rankings as baseline.  As long as people recognize that they reward consistency rather than winning, they are valuable resource.  And they are unbiased as they don't give subsidies for playing in the Hero Indian Open and the Joburg open (and Players, Masters, US Open, Open Champ and PGA).  

Its a linear measuring system, and I happened to think Sag's rankings are a leading indicator of OWGR rankings.

Whats more egregious as a ranking system?  A system  that has Furyk as #1, or a system that has Woods still in the top 70?

Which is more accurate - a clock that's stopped or one that loses a minute a day?

If we really wanted to understand which ranking system is less egregious, we should probably ask the bookies which they use in factoring the odds - their interest is fiscal and not so theoretical

Bookies are only interested in maximizing the Vig by balancing the bets and reducing their exposure.

GPB wrote:I have discussed the Sagarin formulas before, and they are UNBIASED.  ..... The European Tour is much more heavily subsidized than the PGATour.  This weeks tournament in Indian should be valued at OWGR level 14.  Its getting a level 19 instead.  It is one of about 10-12 tournaments that are subsidized.

GPB wrote:....  Sagarin valuing Willett so highly tells me that there is no bias against the European Tour.

GPB,
From two of your earlier statements quoted above the conclusion must de drawn that Willett  - who we could agree upon is playing almost exclusively on the ET - has been 'heavily subsidized' by the OWGR?
Obviously this 'heavily subsidizing'  has given Willett his 51st position on the OWGR. While on the 'unbiased' - as you call it - Sagarin list he is on 15th?

How could it be that 'heavily subsidizing' (by the OWGR) brings a player down from an 'unbiased' (by Sagarin) 15th position to a mere 51st on the OWGR?
This doesn't seem logical at all. At least not if subsidizing has to be something with a positive outcome on players involved.

For every Willett, there is a Stephen Gallacher who is ranked #31 in the OWGR and 95th in Sagarin rankings.

Willett is highly valued by Sagarin because his last 52 weeks have been exceptional.  Very consistent, few missed cuts and lots of Top 25 finishes.

The OWGR is a two year system, and therefore carrying the period from Feb 2013 to Feb 2014.  Willett performance during this time was poor, he went ranked from 84th to 123rd.  That is baggage that is affecting his OWGR ranking.

There is a problem comparing the two formulas.  Not only are the fundamentals behind the rankings different, the time period of the rankings is different.

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


A little investigation into the Gallacher's OWGR vs Sagarin difference:

Gallacher's tournament that has the most NET OWGR points is his win last winter in Dubai.

But that result was more than a year ago and therefore does not count towards Sagarin rankings.


=========

And BTW...I believe you are taking my "heavily subsidizing" comment out of context.  As compared to the PGATour, the EuroTour is much more heavily subsidized.  

HOWEVER

Ranking the most subsidized Tours, the EuroT is the second least subsidized tour, next to the PGATour.  Japanese, Asian, Sunshine, OneAsia, Web-com, Challenge Tours (etc) are all more subsidized than the EuroTour.

Jimenez is projected at #50 entering this week

He is in a 11-way T21 going into final round.  

He needs a 21st place or better to pass Willett, A solo 13th or better to pass Luke. Solo 12th to pass Dufner.

There are several players in position to leapfrog Dufner-Donald-Willett-Jimenez playing LA.  Notably Brendon Todd, Harris English and Graham Delaet.

Todd needs an solo 11th, English a solo 6th place and Delaet needs a solo 3rd to jump ahead of Dufner.

Had to be some dry throats in India in round 4, the two players that distanced themselves from the pack after three rounds both shot 76 to let the pack catch up.

Lahiri wins his 2nd Euro/AsianT tournament in a couple weeks and he can now make some reservations in Augusta.

Temporarily moves to #32 in the rankings.

Jimenez also shot 76, and he is real jeopardy of not qualifying for the Cadillac.

==========

Under the radar, Brandon Grace wins the Sunshine Tour event this week, the Dimension Data Pro-Am.  He moves temporarily to #39.

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

There will be a new #2 this week.  Bubba has passed Stenson, no matter what.  Fuyrk can claim #2 should he win and Bubba finishes worse than 30th.

Some projections of the main NTO contenders

Goosen could move inside the top 75 with a win.
Delaet could move inside the top 30 with a win
Sergio gets to #4 with a win.
Holmes, to #18
SM Bae, inside the top 40
Ortiz,  inside the top 50.

For all the press focus on Thomas and Finau, Carlos Ortiz is the most impressive new boy for me so far this season.

Plus Lahiri in the driving seat for a Pres Cup place. Will DeLaet join him?

kwinigolfer wrote:For all the press focus on Thomas and Finau, Carlos Ortiz is the most impressive new boy for me so far this season.

Really?  Ortiz is #71 in FE Standings going into this week, currently projected to #39.

Finau is #25 in FEX standings and Thomas is #34.

I just don't see how you can say Ortiz has been more impressive than Finau or Thomas.

Ortiz had a more impressive 2014, but it seemed like he either won or finished 45th or missed the cut.

Just an opinion GPB, I like the way he plays. Three Top 20's already(probably fewer than the other two though) and he's in a promising position this week.
Should be a great afternoon's action.

Preliminary rating for Honda is 60, which will make it the strongest field of 2015 calendar year, thus far.

27 of the top 50 in the field as of this weeks rankings.

Kind of surprised that Chubby didn't get Uihlein a sponsor's invite this week

Hahn jumps from about 300 in the world to well inside the top 90.

Jimenez falls out of top 50.  barely,  Brendon Todd and his T14 knocks Jimenez out.

If Jimenez had not played Hero, he would be playing Miami next week.

I wonder if Miguel got a $50K appearance fee from HERO Scooters.

GPB wrote:Kind of surprised that Chubby didn't get Uihlein a sponsor's invite this week

Any particular reason why?

GPB,
I know he won't be playing anywhere, but is there any chance that M-A J gets in the Caddie after next week? I imagine the answer is NO! as he plays so many events.

Any idea where Casey gets to? I imagine it's just inside the Top 64 - hopefully he'll stay there and maybe move forward. Another golfer passes ETW.

robo,
Golf Channel's coverage this week reminds me how much I enjoy Phil Blackmar's coverage. He's a bit of a bygone era (the one after mine perhaps ), but he passes on some great insights.

Because Uihlein is a local boy and ISM US HQ is at the Palms.  

And ISM main clientele have supported Honda in the past.

I got Casey at #65, just barely inside the bubble since Luke is not playing.  But the way Luke  is playing....he may be outside the top 64 in 8 weeks.

Phil Blackmar?  myeh. He has a Notah Begay type delivery.  A mouth breather.

Nah,
Luke will cash at Honda and play well at Innisbrook.

I was wondering what robo thought about Blackmar, what with Phil's success in Texas 'n'all? Couldn't care less how he sounds, I appreciate some of his insight, gets to pass on soe great observations.

GPB wrote:Because Uihlein is a local boy and ISM US HQ is at the Palms.  

And ISM main clientele have supported Honda in the past.

I didn't know Uihlein was part of the Palm Beach Posse.   But not sure why Chubby having his American base at Old Palm would necessarily get him a leg up for SE's into the Honda...  This year ISM guys Westwood, Oosthuizen (both area residents) along with Seung-Yul-Noh are in the field. But my sense is these guys, and even the Chubby guys of the past played it more that it was near their base, or otherwise made sense on their schedule.

But ISM guy Joost Luiten did get one of the unrestricted SE's... so if Chubby does swing any weight [pun not intended] with the Honda, perhaps he used up all his chits on Luiten.

EDIT: Also interesting to note, Els and Schwartzel are no longer listed on ISM's golf client page either...   I guess ISM is probably missing those "heady days" just a few years ago when it seemed they were ruling the roost... Darren & Oosty apparently the only major winners in their stable now...

Well Luiten is a top 40 player.  I don't think it takes too much for invite for him.

Kwini, there is an outside shot that Jimenez could be #50, but no one behind would pass him and Luke would basically have to finish 56th or worse.

========

Well, Luke has played well there in the past but his current form is so bad that I'm not even sure it's a good course for him right now. 56th could be a very good result for him.
Reshuffle has taken its toll on the Honda field, some travel plans will have to be rearranged.

11 of the 12 Euro Ryder Cuppers are playing Honda (Stenson is the only one missing).

Honda Classic projecting at level 60. 

IIRC, no Euro (only) event has ever been OWGR 60, without subsidies. Including the Eurotour flagship event.

Hi GPB. Pardon my ignorance but what would be the level/rating/ranking if ALL of the top 120 players in the world competed in an event? (no subsidies, whatever they are)
And that there are only 120 players in the field.

I'm never wrong wrote:Hi GPB. Pardon my ignorance but what would be the level/rating/ranking if ALL of the top 120 players in the world competed in an event? (no subsidies, whatever they are)
And that there are only 120 players in the field.

It would be a level 80 by the OWGR tables.

FWIW:  The PGA Championship comes pretty darn close to getting this exact field every summer.

Its a 156 player field, of which 20 spots are reserved for club pros.

Another 6-10 spots are claimed by former champs who are no longer top ranked players.  Like Vijay, Davis Love, YE Yang, Shaun Micheel.  The Champions Tour players normally do not play (Like Sluman, Azinger)

So that leaves about 125 spots for competitive players.

Usually the top 100 players are exempted and the other 25 spots are mostly filled by players ranked from #101 to #200.

And for the OWGR SoF formulas  #101 player brings the same value as #200 player.

80. Thank you.

Last week, James Hahn was #297 going into Northern Trust Open.

Guess who is #297 this week?  That's right, Padraig Harrington!!

A Harrington win will get his ranking into the low 80's!  And an invite to the Masters...but no invite to Cadillac.

Patrick Reed will be able to call himself Top 10, if he wins (unless Kaymer or Fowler do something remarkable like have podium finishes).  Still quite a ways from Top 5.

IJP will crack the top 20 should he win.

Brendan Steele would  crack the Top 50, and invites to Cadillac and the Masters.

Should Wallie Coetsee win Saffer land, he halves his ranking from #509th to about #250th

Harrington wouldn't be exempt into the US Open either.

At the very least, there should be some stabilisation in the positions of some of the Europeans, Donald and Poults especially.

Three slots for St.Andrews available from Joburg. Coetsee favourite but Howell, Webster, Blaauw, Tjaart and others incl Dyson and Sullivan all with lots to play for.