OWGR - Week #18

The future's bright, the future's... orange?
Whatever we may feel about his clothes, his choice of colors, his moustache or his god, there's no doubt that this has been a great first win for Rickie Fowler! We'll see what this will do now for his confidence and carreer moving forward. It certainly does pretty good things for his world ranking, with a nice jump up to #24 (not a carreer best though). As for his play-off rivals, we know by now that Rory is returning to #1, after another fine tournament that he will no doubt feel he could've won, while DA Points enjoys a sizable jump up of 34 places to #73, which I believe is a carreer best for him.

Congratulazioni to Francesco Molinari for a very fine win at the Open de Espana, and that is lifting him back inside the top 30 in the world (#29) and is also pushing him up close to the relevant top places in the Ryder Cup tables. Otherwise, Webb Simpson is returning to the top 10 after a fine tournament at home in Charlotte, while Ben Curtis continues his impressive climb up the rankings with another very good finish which should bring him somewhere inside top 120. But from those who are battling these weeks for a place in the top 60 to qualify for the US Open, nobody has been able to make a significant move upwards this week.

Finally, well done to the young Georgia graduate Hudson Swafford who won his first tournament on the NW tour after a brilliant 62 on Sunday. Not quite sure if he is still an amateur or not, but in any case he will be propelled around 750 places (!) as a result of this, somewhere around #430.

The OWGR table after week #18 should look as follows:

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

Interesting that Fowler T10s in New Orleans and goes up 8 spots in the rankings.

Then he wins this week, in a higher rated event, and goes up 15 spots.

There is a Big Log Jam around the #40 spot in the OWGR.

C'Mon Matteo, get your butt inside the top 60 so we will see you in San Francisco.

Well, Matteo had in fact just got his butt inside the top 60 (or 61)... he is actually sharing the 60th spot with YE Yang, didn't see that detail last night...
There was also an intruder in my top 100 of last night who has been now evicted... I gave A. Kim by mistake the winner's 58 pts and then forgot to take them back out, so he ended up somewhere inbetween Matteo and RCBello He would've been delighted with that, I'm sure...

PD,

Super stuff. I look at Woods at No. 7 and think that's not right............but then i remember Chevron!!

Would anyone happen to know if Matteo will have another chance to play prior to the first OWGR top-60 cutoff for the U.S. Open on May 21? I see he's not in the field this upcoming week... and as of yet he's not announced for the Volvo World Match Play... (even though due to the high number of players declining invitations he may be eligible now?) I realize there is another cutoff a month later... but I'm hoping Matteo can get in the "first OWGR cut".

Speaking of the Volvo World Match play... it looks as though the OWGR value will be significantly down this year from last... This year only 1 player out of the current OWGR top-10 committed (#8 Kaymer). Contrast to 2011 when the Volvo match featured 6 of the top-10, including #'s 1,2,3,5,6 & 9. That alone accounts for a loss of 158 World event rating value just within the top-10 alone. It also appears as though the home values will be approx. halved as well... so that's another roughly 25 points gone. Granted some of that top-10 loss might be recovered down the line with other players, but maybe not. Judging from the 17 announced to date... if they're already down to Jbe Kruger... then they're having to go pretty "deep" to fill the field this year. Pending the remaining 7 entrants... this event may be in jeopardy of going from a 52 in 2011 to an under 40 in 2012.

robo,
Can't see where he would be playing so he, and one or two others, will have to depend on the second bite at the cherry, on June 11th. Imagine F'dez and Cabrera-Bello, etc., will be in the same boat; and the Mechanic though strongly doubt he will lose sleep over it, one way or the other.

And, just to go off at a tangent, it is conceivable that losing every MatchPlay match might be enough to garner Casey enough points for US Open qualification.

robo,
Also hope you'll enter the Fantasy Game the thread for which is now a "sticky" on the Golf Board.

pd,

You mention Frannie's bid for Ryder Cup; Rickie Fowler has now clawed his way into the qualifying places, which are now occupied by:
Bubba
Phil
Hunner
Keegs
Dufner
Stricker
Fowler
Woods
--------
Sneds
Haas
Stanley
Wagner.

Others currently outside the top 12 include these from Celtic Manor and Royal Melbourne:
14).Kuchar
16).Simpson
17).Dustin
21).Furyk
22).Zach
29).Toms
34).Watney
39).Overton
72).Cink

kwinigolfer wrote:And, just to go off at a tangent, it is conceivable that losing every MatchPlay match might be enough to garner Casey enough points for US Open qualification.

Interesting point... Casey's divisor will go up 1 after the Volvo and that alone would drop him approx 3 spots... so if he MC's the PLAYERS and fares poorly in the match play... losing 8 more spots over this and next week is certainly not out of the question. I also notice that with Bello, Goosen and Grace lurking just under the #60 threshold, and IN the Match Play there's room for at least 2, maybe all three to advance beyond Casey. So yeah... the approx 2 points Casey would earn for a Volvo Match last place... could be VERY important.

kwinigolfer wrote:You mention Frannie's bid for Ryder Cup; Rickie Fowler has now clawed his way into the qualifying places, which are now occupied by...

The way the U.S. Team qualifies... any spot from #4 and below is WAY up in the air (Only #1 Watson is safe, and probably #2 Mickelson and #3 Mahan.)

Right now #25 on the U.S. list is only a million out of the #8 spot. With three majors at double points (2.8 mil to the winner - 16 mil total points available), plus the rich Players (1.7/9 mil) , and rich WGC Bridgestone (1.4/8.5 mil) still on the schedule (not to mention the other dozen events)... it's WIDE, WIDE open.

robopz,
the Volvo MP field is now complete and there's no place for Matteo, I'm affraid...

http://www.volvoworldmatchplay.com/the-field

The invite went to Casey, which at least in my mind is a bit of a strange decision, but Volvo may have their own reasons for that... Indeed, the field this year is much weaker and at current rankings this would be worth only 38 pts to the winner (that may change but only slightly by the time of play). So back to Matteo's case, he'll have to think of the next cut off deadline for sure, and I'm hoping he'll be able to put on a good show at Wentworth in particular...

That's correct, of course robo, especially as the US has started to win Majors again, just wanted to show where some familiar names are in the rankings!

One glaring outsider is Watney and he's had a poor year, if not by his standards, at least against expectations for him.
Hadn't realised that he's still making changes to his swing and grip - sound familiar??!!

Surprise, surprise!... The Players will be worth 80 pts to the winner!
And the dismal Madeira field would probably be on a par (or close) to the Japanese Tour event, at 18 pts...

The top three are again out of reach for anybody else in the field.
As for Rory, Luke and Lee, they can end up in any order after this week. Here's a few projections:

- Luke needs a solo 4th or better to have a chance of passing Rors again (if Rory doesn't score)
- (Only) if Luke wins he will go to #1 no matter what Rory does...
- Lee can go to #1 only with a win (and Rory finishes 3-way tie for 5th or worse), etc.....

#500 Joe Ogilvie is the lowest ranked player in the field this week in Jacksonville.

It is by far the least diluted field in Professional golf.

112 of the top 200
134 of the top 300
10 players from #301-#500

Summing up the OWGR avgs, the total adds up to 308.18.

yes, some top players are skip the event voluntarily, like Bubba but everyone playing had some sort of aspect to their resume.

This is one of those strange weeks when neither side of the Atlantic has a sensible schedule... the Nationwide has an inexplicable week off when the main tour has its strongest field for months, and the NW could have studded its field with a good few bigger names than normal who couldn't make the Sawgrass field. And conversely, the Challenge Tour has decided to co-sanction the Madeira (with a field even more feeble than previous years), and at the same time start its Europe-based season with a simultaneous event in France, where the field will be horrendous even by CT standards as most of that tour's regulars are in Madeira. Bizarre...

NedB:

No idea what is going on in Europe, but I am pretty sure the lack of NW and Champions tour events is to give the entire spotlight to the PGATour flagship tournament with no 'competition' from the PGATour's minor events.

This is PGATour's baby and the PGAT is not about to "put Baby in a corner".

GPB,

that's self-defeating surely? It's not like the other tours get any great coverage in any other week; when they're up against something as feeble as this year's Valero they still barely warrant a mention in the Sports pages, and get ignored by everyone except obsessives like most of us on here. I would think that there's far more chance of selling the product to new audiences on a week like this, when there's much more public attention on golf to begin with, and you can add-on the extras while selling the main product.

GPB wrote:It is by far the least diluted field in Professional golf.

Possibly... depending on how you define diluted. But the Players certainly isn't the best field of the year as the PGA has quietly assumed that role over the last few years. I haven't done the field analysis of the 2012 Players yet, but I'll take your 308 sum of averages as accurate. But for comparison sake... last year's PGA sum of averages was over 341 (I only have the average for the top-300). The key to the PGA's strength is that it uses its exemptions ensure all the OWGR top-100 gets invited... no other event does that. Last year the PGA had 98 of the top-100 (Tim Clark missed to injury and not sure why Colsearts didn't play)... contrast that to the 2011 Players which had 77 top-100 players.

Granted the PGA does have 20 club pros and about 7 or 8 non-competitive past champions... but last year it still had 125 top-200 (compared to 112 for the Players)... and 129 players in the top-300 (compared to 134 for this year's Players).

My contention would be that the Players field is more diluted than the PGA because the dilution in the Players is by having 22% less top-100 than the PGA. The fact that the Players has 5 extra top 201-300 players and 10 more 300-500 players... can't overcome it's "missing" top-100 players.

If I were running a major my starting point would be to invite the top 100 in the world then anyone in positions 1-20 in the fedex not already qualified through being in the top 100.


In fact is there any reason why there is not an event that just invites the top 125 then gives the sponsors 10 spots to do what they want with?

robo, I suspect Colsaerts was also injured, still recovering from the scooter mishap he had just prior to the Open. Speaking of him, I hadn't realised just how consistent he's been this year. 10 Euro events in 2012, inc. 2 WGCs, top 10s in 6 of them, and nothing outside the top 35 anywhere. Very solid indeed.

The main thing that deters me from rating the Players more highly is that it's still essentially a single tour event. I rate the WGCs higher, despite the undersized fields, because they're genuinely global events, in that the exemptions, sanctioning etc is done by all the big global tours. I can accept that the PGA is still the strongest tour, but there's good players on the other tours now too, and I think the players doesn't do enough to include them yet. If you want to be the 5th major, you need to make it easier for a Jimenez, Colsaerts, Manassero etc to get in to your field, and harder for a guy who finished 125 on last year's money list, or won the Mayakoba or Puerto Rico Open in 2010.

McLaren wrote:If I were running a major my starting point would be to invite the top 100 in the world then anyone in positions 1-20 in the fedex not already qualified through being in the top 100.


In fact is there any reason why there is not an event that just invites the top 125 then gives the sponsors 10 spots to do what they want with?

Tend to agree with that.

As for the Players, this is a regular PGA Tour event so i haver no issue with who is "invited". PGA Tour Members must be prioritised.............

Yes, it is a regular PGA Tour event, which is exactly why it shouldn't be considered a 5th major, or even on a par with the WGCs.

NedB-H wrote:The main thing that deters me from rating the Players more highly is that it's still essentially a single tour event. I rate the WGCs higher, despite the undersized fields, because they're genuinely global events, in that the exemptions, sanctioning etc is done by all the big global tours.

Ned... I understand what you are saying but can't agree that the WGC's are stronger than the Players. Remember the PLAYERS still invites the OWGR top-50 (same as the WGC Cadillac and WGC Bridgestone) but the PLAYERS this year still gets in 24 International players ranked above #50 and the field is roughly double the field size.

IMO a good way to judge TRUE field depth is to use the sum of the OWGR averages for all players in the field. IMO this is better than comparing OWGR World Event Rating Values, because World ERV's only go through #200... while every OWGR ranked player has an average (approx 1400 players). So using the averages... EVERY ranked player in a field gets some credit for adding to the field strength. Using that method of comparing event strength... here is how it came out in 2011:

342.72 - PGA Championship
318.27 - Open Championship
302.98 - Players
279.57 - U.S. Open
259.31 - Masters
250.96 - WGC Bridgestone
226.59 - WGC-Match Play
222.13 - WGC-Cadillac
>200.0 - WGC-HSBC

I think there are two issues here... the PLAYERS as a 5th major... and it's strength relative to the other "big" events.

1. 5th Major - NOPE. That ship has sailed, that is if it ever got in the water. If it ever had a chance of being a "5th major", that chance is 100% gone now. Two main reasons. The change from March to May, put it up against a meaty portion of the European Tour schedule, thus some of the top Euro's stopped coming, even though invited. Second... you can't just "designate" a major in Men's professional golf. In this day in age designating another event a major would take a consensus of approval from worldwide players and worldwide golf organizations. NO WAY another major in the U.S. would ever gain that approval (and rightly so I might add).

2. Strength of the event - While the PLAYERS shouldn't have the status of a major, it still has an outstanding field. IMO the 3rd strongest field in the world... behind the PGA and Open Championship, but better than the U.S. Open and Masters (and all the WGC's). See my reply to Ned-B above for an explanation of how I judge field strength of the big events.

EDIT: Perhaps there is a third issue - Status of the event - IMO the status of the PLAYERS is behind the Majors, but above the WGC's... at least for now. IMHO that will change over time, and perhaps as soon as 20 years from now "the world" will rate WGC's MUCH higher than they do now. I don't believe WGC's are likely to ever gain equal or superior status to majors in status, but they will be considered MUCH closer in status to majors than they are now. IMO if the WGC's would expand their field to even 100-120 players, and invite at least 90% of their field straight off the OWGR top-100... then they would quickly surpass the PLAYERS in status, and be considered closer to the majors than they are now.

AND... I also recognize that the status associated with an event ratchets up the pressure, so strength of field is not the only determining factor on which events are "harder to win". IMO the greater pressure of a major eliminates more of the competition right off the bat... and the pressure coming down the stretch at a the Masters or U.S. Open is so much greater than the PLAYERS. So even though two of the major fields may be marginally weaker than the PLAYERS... I still "subjectively" consider them "stronger" events.

Robo and I have this discussion many times before.

The foundation of my argument for saying the Players has the least diluted field is the 140th best player in the field has a chance to win. A player such as Craig Perks.

IMO, the 140th best player in the field has no chance to win the PGA or the Open Championship.

And Robo, you will find that the Open Championship and PGA sums will increase noticeably this year because of the maximum divisor change.

GPB wrote:IMO, the 140th best player in the field has no chance to win the PGA or the Open Championship.

Why do you not say the 140th best player has no chance of winning the US Open??

Surely the US Open has a much weaker field than both the Open Ch'ship and the PGA, given the huge no. of local/sectional US qualifiers ??

John Cregan:

For sure, I guess I was not clear.

IMO, the Players Championship is the ONLY golf tournament where the 140th best player in the field actually has a chance to win the tournament.

Yes, with approximately half of the field as qualifiers, the US Open field is weaker than the PGA and Open Championship.

GPB wrote:The foundation of my argument for saying the Players has the least diluted field is the 140th best player in the field has a chance to win. A player such as Craig Perks.

IMO, the 140th best player in the field has no chance to win the PGA or the Open Championship.

And Robo, you will find that the Open Championship and PGA sums will increase noticeably this year because of the maximum divisor change.

I can't agree with your assertion... Here's some comparisons...

The 2011 PGA had 98 top-100 compared to 70 for the 2012 PLAYERS - 28 more for the PGA
The 2011 PGA had 124 top-200 compared to 112 for the 2012 PLAYERS - 12 more for the PGA
The 2011 PGA had 128 top-300 compared to 134 for the 2012 PLAYERS - 6 more for the Players
The 2011 PGA had 130 top-500 compared to 144 for the 2012 PLAYERS - 14 more for the Players

So to prove that the Players has a better field because of less dilution... you have to somehow make a convincing argument, that the 14 extra "competitive" guys (who are all ranked above #200) in the PLAYERS, make the field stronger that the MISSING 28 top-100 guys in the PLAYERS.

And by the way... I agree the sums will go up from year to year due to the divisor change, but I'm not sure what you call significant. Just doing a quick sum of the Week 1 top-300 from 2010-1012, it appears the average went up about 3% a year . 2010-465.117(divisor 60) to 2011-478.724(56) to 2012-494.117(52). Assuming the divisor change is the primary cause for that increase, then we should expect the events before July 1, 2012 to show a 3% increase in the sum of averages over 2011 (representing a 4 point drop in divisor from 56 to 52), and the events after July 1 to show a 1.5% increase over 2011 (representing a 2 point drop in divisor from 54 to 52.) The sum for the 2012 Players was up 1.7% over the 2011.

But a note of caution... we need to be careful to assume that the increases of sums are being caused solely by the divisor change. I suspect there are some other factors. For instance 2009 sums should have been at the highest, 1.5% less than 2010 as the divisor went from 62 to 60. But 2009 was 2.5% lower (2009-453.83 to 2010-465.117). And 2008 should have been somewhat equivalent to 2009 but it was virtually the same as 2010 (2008-464.291 to lower 2010-465.117)

Robo:

It is my opinion that the talent gap between

a player ranked about ~50th in the OWGR and ~400th in the OWGR

is not as great as the talent gap between

the ~400 player in the OWGR and a unranked player (eg club pro)

In the last 10 years, I have seen players ranked about ~200-400th win big tournaments, even majors. (Craig Perks, Ben Curtis) and competitive in countless others.

In the last 10 years, I cannot remember a unranked (or a player outside the top 1000) win any big tournament and and very few competitive.

GPB... I agree that we've seen several notable cases of "unexpected" players catching lightning in a bottle and winning an event...

BUT... I'll go back and take the 28 uninjured top-100 players who are not playing in this year's Players (who WOULD have been invited to the PGA) vs any 50 players you care to name ranked #400 and higher. YES... sometimes a 400+ guy will win... but I like my chances FAR better than yours...

So here's my team of 28 (DJ and Bjorn removed due to injury).... who's on your list of 50 players ranked 400+ that will beat these guys? (I'll help you with #456 Patrick Cantlay... good luck with the other 49)

Bubba Watson
Charl Schwartzel
Paul Lawrie
Anders Hansen
K.T. Kim
Nicolas Colsaerts
Gonzalo Fdez-Castano
Ryo Ishikawa
Miguel A. Jimenez
Robert Rock
Matteo Manassero
Rafael Cabrera Bello
Branden Grace
George Coetzee
Darren Clarke
Pablo Larrazabal
Hiroyuki Fujita
Michael Hoey
Alexander Noren
Joost Luiten
Marcus fraser
Richie Ramsay
Jaco Van Zyl
Brendan Jones
Stephen Gallacher
Bernd Wiesberger
Toru Taniguchi
Thomas Aiken

I concede that point.

My point is the that the PGA is diluting a 80 parts of 200 proof grain alcohol 20 parts Miller Lite.

While the Players is diluting 70 parts 200 proof grain alcohol with 30 parts Bacardi 151.

kwinigolfer wrote:PS. Not very happy that Rusell Knox is classified as "American" in the owgr's.

...that should be rectified in near future hopefully...

The preliminary Wentworth field is out and... surprise, surprise! No trace of any top Americans in there (apart from 'major winners' Micheel and Beem). What's more disapointing is that there's no Oosty or Sergio or Karlsson either...

As of last week, John Huh was classified as Korean in the OWGR, yet he was born in NYC and his in the US Ryder Cup standing.

Checking this morning, John Huh is listed as an American.

Funny, in the OWGR website, Russell Knox is listed as American.

But the PGAT listing of the OWGR rankings, Knox (303) is listed as from Scotland.

http://www.pgatour.com/r/stats/info/?186

GPB... Alcohol... Now there there's an analogy I understand!

Seriously... I think you're focusing on two things that's leading you astray on your opinion on this one.

1. Field Dilution - YES I agree there's a LOT to the field dilution argument when comparing a small field (18 player Chevron or 12 player Nedbank, or 24 player World Match Play) that gets 40-50 OWGR points to a full field Shell Houston Open of similar OWGR value. Thus when we increase field size 500-1200%, the likelihood that one of those "extra" players (most who are seasoned Tour campaigners) will win is enormous. But IMHO, when we get to a point where we're comparing two events with 130+ quality players each... then the depth of QUALITY of those fields becomes more significant. IMO adding an additional 10% "average" players to a field can't possibly make up for the loss of 30% of the better players that could be in the field but aren't. (average as a relative term... they're ALL good) .

2. I also believe the roughly 25-26 fairly non-competitive guys in the PGA draws your attention away from the bigger point. For arguments sake, let's say we remove ALL of the club pros and the non-competitive past champions from the PGA. That still leaves us with a field of at least 130 players in the PGA compared to 144 in the PLAYERS... and still leaves us with FAR, FAR better quality at the top of the PGA field over the PLAYERS.

That list of 28 missing guys I posted above illustrates that point. I mean go ahead and look.... even giving you roughly a 2-1 ratio... it's really difficult to field a team of the 50 guys out of the roughly 1000 players ranked #400 and above that we believe would produce a winner more often than the 28 "missing" top-100 guys from the PLAYERS.

I knew you would appreciate the alcohol analogy.

And I agree, the top 125 of the PGA (not necessarily the Open Champ) are far better than the Players.

But I truly believe the Club Pro dilution does more to field quality than the #300 player.

Luke Donald talked about the Putz? ranking this morning in his presser. Does anyone know what he was talking about? He said it was biased towards the Euro tour.

From the ASAP Sports transcript on the Luke's Presser:

Q. Do the players who are among the top 10, let's say, in the rankings, does the ranking correspond with your beliefs about those players' abilities, and do you think it's fairly close‑‑ without getting into any specifics about where it might not correspond, do you have any differences with it?

LUKE DONALD: Again, I haven't really studied it that much. I'm not sure I could name the top 10 exactly.
But again, I don't really have too many issues with the system. This is something I haven't really thought about that much.
There have been other‑‑ I saw an article a couple of weeks ago by one of the statisticians who came up with the new putt statistic and they came up with a new ranking, that at the end of 2010, all I saw was that I was ranked No.9 and that's where I was in the World Rankings. I know there was some bias against the players that play on the U.S. Tour; that was the theory that came about from it.
But obviously I was in the same position on both systems, so that's kind of what I took from it.

it was transcribed as "Putt" statistics but I think he said "Putz"

I don't know what Luke was calling it... but I "think" he may have been referencing the Broadie and Rendleman system that was discussed recently in Golf World. One of the guys is from the "Tuck School at Dartmouth and the other from Colombia Business School. Could be Donald misspoke "Tuck" and it came out Putts. Putts or Putz is the way I heard it live too.

I had heard about this system some time ago... It came up in one of those OWGR bias discussions, but I hadn't understood anything in depth about it until that article....
golfdigest.com/golf-tours-news/2012-04/gwar-stachura-world-golf-ranking

EDIT: By the way... this system will NEVER be accepted by the world golf bodies because it eliminates the free and arbitrary minimum points, flagship event points, and Home tour values. All those elements are necessary to artificially elevate so many of the world's minor tour players way up on the OWGR world rankings and to support the Asian, Sunshine, One-Asia co-sanctioned "floor" events on the European Tour. This Tuck system is MATH and is unaffected by "Everybody gets a ribbon" world golf politics. While this system might calculate different factors than the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index, (and I have no clue what time frame it uses) it has a similar effect of lowering the guys who play on the lesser tours such as Japan and Asia. It also lowers a lot of the European Tour guys who "make their bones" on the Euro Tour in the smaller events, but compete unsuccessfully when they compete on the bigger stages. Some PGAT guys too. For example the Tuck system did not reward Fowler's success in the 2010 weak Fall Series events near as strongly as the OWGR did.

GPB wrote: But I truly believe the Club Pro dilution does more to field quality than the #300 player. .

On that point I think we agree completely. But I still believe a missing top-100 player dilutes the field more than an extra top-300 player helps it. The Sum of Averages we've been talking about for sometime seems to support that contention as it relates to the Players and PGA. However I believe the SOA isn't perfect either, better, but not perfect. Any two events within 10 or 15 are so close I believe other factors could affect which we would consider the stronger field.

But as per the table of big event SOA's I posted earlier... I see All the WGC's pretty close to the same strength, but always have "thought" the Bridgestone maybe just a bit better. And I believe the SOA properly orders the strength of fields of the Majors... PGA the best, then British, U.S. Open and Masters 4th. And IMO, there is significant enough gap in SOA between the PGA over the Players (roughly 40 points)... that I can support the PGA as a stronger field than the Players.

robo

Do you know where I could read a slightly more technical explanation of the Broadie and Rendleman ranking system?

From a quick read a view of their rankings they seem to be assuming PGA tour courses are a lot harder than those on other tours. It would be interesting to see why they came to that conclusion.

Robo:

Aren't you forgetting one thing about the Sum(Avgs)? Calendar Bias?

Calendar OWGR bias is going to help the PGA (and Open Champ) versus the Players. Does not count for the entire difference, but does offset it a little. OWGR Points are discounted about 54.8% at the time of Players, but increase to about 60% at the week PGA.

I agree, I think Sum(Avgs) is a better tool for field evaluation. But the Sum(Avgs) is sensitive to the Calendar Bias.

If two identical Accenture tournaments were held in January and August with the top 64 entered, the Sum(avgs) would be much higher in August.


Edit

Sum(AVGs) for players 1-64

Jan 1, 2012: 233.1
May 7, 2012: 243.5

4.3% more

Saw this earlier, then read the debate on this thread. Nothing personal, gents, just made me laugh.

https://twitter.com/#!/madeupstats/status/200318571048476673

GPB wrote:Robo:

Aren't you forgetting one thing about the Sum(Avgs)? Calendar Bias?

Calendar OWGR bias is going to help the PGA (and Open Champ) versus the Players. Does not count for the entire difference, but does offset it a little. OWGR Points are discounted about 54.8% at the time of Players, but increase to about 60% at the week PGA.

Good point on the calendar bias. Using the top-300 at week-18 vs week-32 for the last 2 years... the numbers come out similar to your top-64.

2011 Week-18 = 477.749
2011 Week-32 = 500.480 (increase of 4.76%)

2010 Week-18 = 472.879
2010 Week-32 = 499.890 (increase of 5.71%)

Discount the approx 1.5% increase due to the divisor change (as we discussed earlier) and it brings the percentages down to roughly 3.25% and 4.25%.

But... the difference for the 2011 Players and PGA Sum of Averages = 13.1% (342.72 PGA vs 302.98 players). Even adjusting for the Calendar Bias... the PGA still comes out ahead by somewhere in the 8.85% to 9.85% range.

Robo: What about the fact that the max divisor changed from 56 to 54 on July 1, 2011?

McLaren wrote:robo

Do you know where I could read a slightly more technical explanation of the Broadie and Rendleman ranking system?

From a quick read a view of their rankings they seem to be assuming PGA tour courses are a lot harder than those on other tours. It would be interesting to see why they came to that conclusion.

MAC... I know the example Golf World did makes it sound that way... but I don't "think" that's what Broadie and Rendleman were really saying... This is a player rating system, not a course rating system. IMO GW incredibly jumbled the explanation.

Here's a simplified version

If Player A always beats Player B by 2 strokes, and Player B always beats Player C by two strokes, then Player A is 4 strokes better than Player C. (even though Player A may never play Player C)

Therefore... If Bill England goes over and beats Joe Japan by 2 strokes, and Capt. America beats Bill England by 2 strokes... The Capt. America is 4 strokes better than Joe Japan.

Of course you can't make those assumptions with just 3 players... but when you calculate the millions and millions of "matches" and "comparison" from 1000's of players worldwide... the data becomes more meaningful.

EDIT: And no, I don't know where you can find more info... But I have been in contact with the conference organizers where they presented their theories, and I have been promised a copy of their presentation, data and notes... that was a few weeks ago... I'll follow up.

GPB wrote:Robo: What about the fact that the max divisor changed from 56 to 54 on July 1, 2011?

I accounted for that in my prior post when I said: Discount the approx 1.5% increase due to the divisor change (as we discussed earlier) and it brings the percentages down to roughly 3.25% and 4.25%.

We established earlier that the Divisor decrease "may" have been resulting in a 3% increase in OWGR averages per year (4 points), or approx 1.5% for each 2 point divisor decrease.

Robo: that system sounds a lot like Sagarin's formulas in GolfWeek.

Seems pretty linear with no bonus for winning.

GPB wrote:Robo: that system sounds a lot like Sagarin's formulas in GolfWeek.

Seems pretty linear with no bonus for winning.

From the way I understand it... That's correct in that there is no bonus for winning. But in a prior conversation I had on this a few weeks ago, I was told the difference was that Sagarin keeps a simple won/loss record between players applied to a strength of schedule factor... applied to a formula to "normalize" the data to "look" like an actual scoring comparison.

Broadie/Rendleman system takes a TRUE head to head scoring average of player A vs player B vs player C. So MARGIN of difference is a factor.

In Sagarin... if Player A beats player B by 1 stroke and in another Tournament (assume same SOF) Player A beats Player C by 15 strokes. This is what the Sagarin ranking looks like.

#1 - Player A - 2-0
#2 - Player B - 0-1
#2 - Player C - 0-1

But in Broadie/Rendleman the ranking would reflect that A beat player C by more than he beat player B, thus the ranking would be:

#1 - Player A
#2 - Player B
#3 - Player C

Again... this is the way it was EXPLAINED to me... don't ask me to support the above with data and formulas... because I don't have it. I've asked, and have been promised, but have yet to receive it.

The problem here is what you want the rankings to show, and I think for a lot of people they want them to partly show the probability a player will win. As we know Tiger leads (or is very near the top) the average scoring on tour this season but has never really looked like winning in most of his events.

Really you would like the rankings to reflect the chances a player has of posting a score low enough to win as well as the probability of beating another player. A winning score is obviously impossible to predict but you need a number which says this player goes low enough to beat X percent of the field Y percent of the time.

it seems the Broadie/Rendleman system removes some of the details a players score distribution could reveal such as peaks exceptional peaks in performance. The frequency of such peaks may have more bearing on a players success over a season the who he is beating on average.

Mac, rankings don't reflect the possibility of a win, they reflect the consistency of a player over a given period of time (which is in my opinion far too long). Branden Grace has won three times this year, but isn't ranked high whereas Westwood, Donald and Mcilroy finish consistently higher but with fewer wins.

I think you also have to take Woods scoring average with a pinch of salt too as he's hardly played compared to most. Its a bit like saying someone who has a 100% sand save record but has only been in the sand once all year is the best at bunkers. When all it really says is that the one time they went in they were successful.

princedracula wrote:

kwinigolfer wrote:PS. Not very happy that Rusell Knox is classified as "American" in the owgr's.

...that should be rectified in near future hopefully...

...as anticipated yesterday, Russell Knox is now Scottish... even in the owgr rankings! Hope kwini is happy now...

Does someone from the OWGR site read v2?