OWGR - March 2016

First topic message reminder :

Here is what the OWGR rankings should look like on March 7th, 2016.

 

1	Jordan	Spieth		11.355
2	Rory	McIlroy		9.870
3	Jason	Day		9.637
4	Bubba	Watson		9.016
5	Rickie	Fowler		8.184
6	Adam	Scott		7.481
7	Henrik	Stenson		7.186
8	Justin	Rose		6.221
9	Dustin	Johnson		5.995
10	Patrick	Reed		4.900
11	Danny	Willett		4.724
12	Branden	Grace		4.702
13	Sergio	Garcia		4.677
14	Hideki	Matsuyama		4.526
15	Jim	Furyk		4.368
16	Brandt	Snedeker		4.106
17	Phil	Mickelson		4.023
18	Louis	Oosthuizen		4.004
19	Brooks	Koepka		4.001
20	Zach	Johnson		3.989
21	Kevin	Kisner		3.919
22	Jimmy	Walker		3.476
23	J.B.	Holmes		3.425
24	Shane	Lowry		3.278
25	Paul	Casey		3.276
26	Kevin	Na		3.223
27	Byeong Hun	An		3.191
28	Matt	Kuchar		3.184
29	Marc	Leishman		3.170
30	Andy	Sullivan		3.138
31	Justin	Thomas		2.980
32	Charl	Schwartzel		2.939
33	Russell	Knox		2.874
34	Danny	Lee		2.769
35	Emiliano	Grillo		2.753
36	Bernd	Wiesberger		2.749
37	Thongchai	Jaidee		2.729
38	David	Lingmerth		2.617
39	Victor	Dubuisson		2.616
40	Martin	Kaymer		2.605
41	Billy	Horschel		2.564
42	Soren	Kjeldsen		2.556
43	Bill	Haas		2.555
44	Kiradech	Aphibarnrat		2.518
45	Chris	Wood		2.514
46	Matthew	Fitzpatrick		2.508
47	Scott	Piercy		2.495
48	Robert	Streb		2.467
49	Smylie	Kaufman		2.343
50	Anirban	Lahiri		2.321
----Masters Bubble
51	Jaco	Van Zyl		2.317
52	Jamie	Donaldson		2.290
53	Rafael	Cabrera Bello		2.239
54	Chris	Kirk		2.189
55	Graeme	McDowell		2.183
56	Fabian	Gomez		2.170
57	Daniel	Berger		2.158	*
58	Matt	Jones		2.152
59	Charley	Hoffman		2.145	*
60	Lee	Westwood		2.141
61	Ryan	Moore		2.123	*
62	Jason	Dufner		2.122	*
63	Marcus	Fraser		2.107
64	Ian	Poulter		2.068	*
65	Thorbjorn	Olesen		2.057
66	Thomas	Pieters		2.049	**
---------
67	Ryan	Palmer		2.012	*
68	Patton	Kizzire		2.000	*
69	Gary	Woodland		1.983	*
70	Harris	English		1.964	*
71	Kristoffer	Broberg		1.962	**
72	Shingo	Katayama		1.949	**
73	K.T.	Kim		1.932
74	Jason	Bohn		1.905
75	Webb	Simpson		1.865	*
76	Brendan	Steele		1.820
77	Joost	Luiten		1.801	**
78	George	Coetzee		1.800
79	Steven	Bowditch		1.767	*
80	Francesco	Molinari		1.737	*
81	Tommy	Fleetwood		1.730
82	Ricardo	Gouveia		1.712
83	Russell	Henley		1.697
84	Cameron	Tringale		1.669
85	Ross	Fisher		1.664
86	Dean	Burmester		1.642
87	Hunter	Mahan		1.599
88	Keegan	Bradley		1.595
89	Marc	Warren		1.594
90	Luke	Donald		1.586
91	Yuta	Ikeda		1.566
92	John	Senden		1.560
93	Ben	Martin		1.530
94	Alexander	Levy		1.510
95	Cameron	Smith		1.496
96	Vaughn	Taylor		1.494
97	Tony	Finau		1.490
98	Freddie	Jacobson		1.487
99	James	Morrison		1.474
100	Hiroshi	Iwata		1.474
101	Yusaku	Miyazato		1.457
102	Alexander	Noren		1.454
103	K.J.	Choi		1.453

Everyone in the top 50 is already exempt for the 2016 Masters, bolded players out of the top 50 are also already exempt for the 2016 Masters.

#57-#80 are considered bubble players for the 2016 Matchplay.  If they have no asterisk, it means they are not playing next week.  If they have one asterisk, they are playing Valspar, in Tampa, if they have two asterisk, they are playing in Thailand.


I am assuming that only Stenson and Furyk are skipping the Match Play.

Isn't it a sign of the weakness of the European Tour's early season schedule that Joost Luiten's 7 x Top 15's (incl two decent seconds) so far this year only ratchet him from 85th to 65th in the owgr's?
Perhaps he can rectify things this week and can back into the Top 50 where we're used to seeing him.
He's not in any Majors or WGC's yet so has to do it the hard way.

Last time I saw Luiten, he had the worst flea bitten, maingy beard I've ever seen. Looked like pubes stuck badly in patches onto his face.

Not much improvement super, sad to say.
Played beautifully today though, despite everything.

Funny I didn't realize a professional golfer had to be clean shaven or at worst have a tidy beard. How many shots does that cost him?

Davie wrote:Funny I didn't realize a professional golfer had to be clean shaven or at worst have a tidy beard. How many shots does that cost him?

I'm not saying he does, but it was the most pathetic beard I've seen this side of Jeremy Beadle or Craig David. Looked like a tramp.

Well fcuk me he should be totally ashamed and ban himself from every upcoming tournament for the next two years

You'd think he'd look in the mirror once in a while and think "this beard isn't working " or "jesus Christ, what a sh*t" beard, what am I doing?" Looks like it hooks over his ears.

Super

What style of beard do you have?

McLaren wrote:Super

What style of beard do you have?

I don't have a beard, like Luiten, I'm not hirsute enough to grow one, but unlike him, I don't pretend I can.

If I can interrupt the "Mean Girl" Talk about a golfer's appearance beard, how about some OWGR talk

KT Kim wins Tournament #8 in the last 12 months.  Could be ranked as high as #36 in the OWGR in this weeks rankings.

Some Projections should they win:


BMW-PGA

Wood #22
Karlberg #46
Kaymer#25
Hatton #41

Dean & Deluc

Spieth  #2, but still about 100 pts behind J-Day
Palmer #37
Simpson #47

GPB is Padraig too far in the rankings even with a win next week to qualify for the US Open?

sirb,
I think he'd need a winner's share of about 56 pts to do it, perhaps as many as 60, so doubt either Memphis or Austria would yield that. Too bad, US Open courses often bring out the best of him.

Thanks Kwini! He'd relish the test but hey he missed the cut back in 07 in Oakmont...and then went on to win the Open a month later!!

Kwini is pretty close with his estimate.  If he is not playing Memorial this week, then he has no chance.

kwinigolfer wrote:Isn't it a sign of the weakness of the European Tour's early season schedule that Joost Luiten's 7 x Top 15's (incl two decent seconds) so far this year only ratchet him from 85th to 65th in the owgr's?

I'd say it's a sign of weakness in the European economy that there isn't the finance/sponsorship to attract/keep the best fields, the tour has tried to mitigate that by events in South Africa, Middle East and Far East. In terms of rankings because of the differences it kind of skews the picture, creates the impression that the Americans are much stronger than the Europeans, the Europeans only get to crush that myth once every 2 years.

I don't think it's got the slightest thing to do with the state of the European economy. Other sports like Football and Tennis do just fine in Europe and actually thrive.

The problem is that not enough people in mainland Europe give a toss about golf and even less in the tinpot stopovers the tour has. You can't polish a turd if there is no one to polish it.

Well it kind of is, if big European Corporates had bigger profits they'd have more money to invest in Golf. You are also correct though, if some are willing to invest their brand they will feel they get more value out of it by being associated with the more popular sports like football, tennis, rugby.

Then there's the likes of Deutsche Bank (clearly European although they'd probably call themselves global) who'd rather invest on the other side of the pond. That does say something about the ET's ability to attract finance compared to the PGAT.

So the ET is poorer by far, no question, that doesn't necessarily follow that European players are not as good as Americans in general as the world rankings suggest. Earnings do skew the picture somewhat and the rankings tend to reinforce the misguided perception that player A must be better than player B - just look at their earnings.

The same thing happens in football, Premiership players earn so much money most people believe the hype that "The Premiership must be the best league in the world, look at the money that's in it". Whereas the reality is that the Champions League final was an all Spanish affair and a Spanish team won the Europa League. Best league to watch perhaps (like the PGAT rather than the ET) but doesn't necessarily follow that it will produce the most competitive success.

I agree with Super that it can't be the European economy holding back the sponsors as many other sports around Europea are lavishly funded by European companies.


One thing to consider is whether or not the European tour is actually under funded or lacking quality sponsorship?

It may well be the case that it is well funded and has grown year on year but just not by as much as the PGAT?

It would be interesting to a see a proper analysis comparing the top tours and history of how the PGAT got to its position of superiority.


I do wonder if the second tier players on the PGAT are a lot better than the second tier of players on the EuroT?

JAS wrote:Well it kind of is, if big European Corporates had bigger profits they'd have more money to invest in Golf. You are also correct though, if some are willing to invest their brand they will feel they get more value out of it by being associated with the more popular sports like football, tennis, rugby.

Then there's the likes of Deutsche Bank (clearly European although they'd probably call themselves global) who'd rather invest on the other side of the pond. That does say something about the ET's ability to attract finance compared to the PGAT.

So the ET is poorer by far, no question, that doesn't necessarily follow that European players are not as good as Americans in general as the world rankings suggest. Earnings do skew the picture somewhat and the rankings tend to reinforce the misguided perception that player A must be better than player B - just look at their earnings.

The same thing happens in football, Premiership players earn so much money most people believe the hype that "The Premiership must be the best league in the world, look at the money that's in it". Whereas the reality is that the Champions League final was an all Spanish affair and a Spanish team won the Europa League. Best league to watch perhaps (like the PGAT rather than the ET) but doesn't necessarily follow that it will produce the most competitive success.

European companies do have big profits, and commensurate with American companies. The trouble is that golf is not an attractive thing to sponsor especially for companies in Continental Europe, golf is simply not a big enough sport on mainland Europe.

Deutche Bank know golf is bigger in America than it is in Europe. You can't really interest the people of Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland etc in taking note of their sponsorship if they aren't interested in golf in the first place.
Same reason global American companies don't sponsor Euro events. The interest just isn't there.

It would be interesting to know where golf does actually fit in in terms of popularity and participation levels on Europe as a whole and the same in the U.S. Clearly it's way behind football & tennis. In the U.S though I'm sure it'll also be way behind baseball, basketball and American football.

BMW especially and the likes of Volvo, Dunhill and even Aberdeen Asset Mgt don't seem to see a problem, it wouldn't take that many more big companies to step up to the plate to make the tour much more attractive.

Without a doubt it's down JAS, but in terms of exposure and general TV audiences it's obviously much greater in the USA.

Shell is one of the biggest companies in the world and is from UK/NED, could easily afford to sponsor on each side of the Atlantic, but there's just nothing in it for them to sponsor a European event. In America, the audience might well be low compared to their more insular sports, but it's the corporate nature of the audience they are targeting which is of most importance, and golf has that sewn up in America, but it's not the same in Portugal, Italy, Morocco, Switzerland or the Czech Republic.

super_realist wrote:Without a doubt it's down JAS, but in terms of exposure and general TV audiences it's obviously much greater in the USA.

Shell is one of the biggest companies in the world and is from UK/NED, could easily afford to sponsor on each side of the Atlantic, but there's just nothing in it for them to sponsor a European event. In America, the audience might well be low compared to their more insular sports, but it's the corporate nature of the audience they are targeting which is of most importance, and golf has that sewn up in America, but it's not the same in Portugal, Italy, Morocco, Switzerland or the Czech Republic.

Yep I get that. I can only surmise it's a cultural thing, not sure why but I can't think of anything else.

I still maintain the other original point I made in that the rankings (because of the money & therefore ranking points awarded) would lead you to believe that the Americans are vastly superior to the Europeans whereas actually I don't think they are. The last 3 Ryder Cups will tell you that. Even looking at the Majors, I'm guessing the Americans may be slightly ahead over the past 10 years in number of Majors won but certainly not as dominant as one might imagine, considering as well that 3/4 Majors are actually held in the States. Europeans have done remarkably well, not sure whether that's because of their tour or in spite of it.

I'd agree with your rankings assessment JAS, America are particularly guilty of claiming they have the best players "on paper" especially around Ryder Cup time when they quote the number of Majors as being relevant, when it isn't.

I have always maintained that Europeans have better camaraderie and understand what a team means. I'm not convinced America, their players or fans understand the gravity of international team sport, as their insular sports aren't really played on a big, international level which captures the imagination of the public.

Have to agree with Super here, lack of big money sponsorship has nothing to do with the European economy and everything to do with the product.

It depends on your target market, but commercially there is little rationale in sponsoring European golf when none of the top players in the world turn up to its flagship event, let alone the tinpot events played in front of a dozen spectators in Qatar etc.

Barclays, Deutsche, HSBC, Shell, Zurich, BMW are all European companies and choose to sponsor the PGA Tour because it's a better product.

I'm not sure the Ryder Cup is a good indicator of Tour strength. The best players in the world all play in the US, whether they are american or not. The US Ryder Cup team won't include Day, Scott, Matsuyama, Oosthuizen or McIlroy, to name a few.

Actually just checked, taking it on the 25 most recent Majors its Europe 10, U.S. 10, RoW 5 so it would be dubious claim anyway.

I think I've been clear from the start that the PGAtour is a more commercially successful tour and hence a better product Ray. I have questioned and opined on the relative poverty of the ET and accept Supers point re interest levels.

The other point I've been trying to make is that the rankings (as it's the Rankings thread) are a bit skewed in favour of the Americans and those that play on the PGAT because there are more points available because there is more money so bigger players attracted, it's a kind of self fulfilling prophecy. Recent Ryder Cups and recent Majors results however fly in the face of that. They have easily the richest Tour but that doesn't necessarily play out advantageously in terms of their competitive success in spite of what the OWGR consistently suggests.

Haven't been to an E.T. tournament since 2009 but, if that one is anything to go by, the European Tour has a lot to learn about staging events, getting golf fans and casual spectators alike through the gates, making the whole experience just that, an experience.
The support at Wentworth for the leaders was fantastic, but the number of paying public through the gates was, what? 100,000 for the week? In the big scheme of things that's not very good.

It's not just about sponsorship, it's about the entire package.

Also, the PGA Tour itself has an anti-trust-defying tax exemption which I seriously doubt the European events enjoy.

Do some of you people think a biennial event is an indicator of what players are better at golf.

1. Its Match Play
2. Its an extremely small sample size
3. Its an exhibition (albeit highly competitive)

It's not an indicator of what (sic) players are better at golf. It's an indicator of which teams are better at golf

Davie wrote:It's not an indicator of what (sic) players are better at golf. It's an indicator of which teams are better at golf

I guess that is important to Europeans.

98% of golf is an individual sport.

What's that got to do with it? I answered your question .. no a biennial event isn't an indicator of WHICH players are better at golf. It shows who are the best team

It's a loaded question

How is the Ryder Cup an "exhibition"?

Players qualify for it, they play in it, they win a trophy (if they're European)

It's no different from any other trophy that they play for, it simply has a different format.

So if the Ryder Cup is an exhibition, then so is every other event on the tour.

If Rory McIlroy thinks it is an exhibition I am willing to go along with that assessment.


As I said somewhere above my instinct is that the quality of field on the PGAT is quite a bit better than on the European tour.

Is that why you got a PhD, Mac?

The European Tour has proved over the past 35 years that the E.T. has overtaken the USA in playing Team Golf.

Anyone who thinks it's an exhibition will surely lose. And keep on losing.

McLaren wrote:If Rory McIlroy thinks it is an exhibition I am willing to go along with that assessment.


As I said somewhere above my instinct is that the quality of field on the PGAT is quite a bit better than on the European tour.

That's what he said prior to playing in it Mac.

You're right about the quality of the field though on the PGA, it's getting wider all the time.

I find it quite surprising, looking at it from a wider context, that there isn't actually a world tour and continental "feeder" tours. It's a global sport and so should have a proper global tour. What's holding that back is politics/insularity on the PGAtour and stubbornness on the European tour.  The PGA tour could become the global tour with the European Tour feeding alongside the web.com & sunshine tours and others. Say 125 players with the global tour cards. Obviously all of them wouldn't play every week so the events could be topped up from the feeder tours in that region.
Venues would still predominately be U.S. with the best of the rest thrown in although some shift in their schedule may be required for some. Current European event's worthy of promotion...The 3 desert swing events, Irish, French & Scottish Opens, The PGA, the British Masters, The Dunhill and maybe the Spanish. For balance you'd want a couple of events in the Far East, The Aussie Open and a South African event. The rest would be made up of the current best of the PGAtour. To ease the travel on players I would have distinct swing seasons much like now anyway but firm them up a little e.g.
The desert swing, The Florida swing, The California swing, the British links swing etc. All makes perfect sense but I don't see it happening any time soon.

Forgot to add the bit about the rankings, they would then be a lot more straightforward as all the top players would have the same events open to them that would be subject to the same weighting

That all sounds like Greg Norman speaking!

What would DH favour, JAS?

JAS - Perhaps ... but I think you may be overlooking (maybe discounting) one very important factor: travel. It's why the top Europeans (and Americans) home base in Florida (for a while at least). If they can make similar money and not have to travel the globe (remember, they are working, not sightseeing, and hoping to make a cut in most instances), then why not play the John Deere classic (everything else pretty much equal) if your home base is in the US?

A "proper global tour" is earned by the patronage of the professionals.  Not as Greg "the ego" Norman envisioned. Good luck getting the sponsors (who, after all, pay most of the bills).

Tennis players could make similar money and not travel the globe... Yet they still do?

Pedro - Are you sure of that? In the US or any other country/continent?

The tennis tour is global, you could not be a top player and not travel.

kwinigolfer wrote:That all sounds like Greg Norman speaking!

What would DH favour, JAS?

Dunno Kwini, I'll ask him the next time I see him. I notice he never went to Walton Heath this year. When he was down our way at the beginning of May he reckoned he wouldn't be recovered enough to play Wentworth but then he did, I suspect he was pushed into it.

Shotrock wrote:JAS - Perhaps ... but I think you may be overlooking (maybe discounting) one very important factor: travel. It's why the top Europeans (and Americans) home base in Florida (for a while at least). If they can make similar money and not have to travel the globe (remember, they are working, not sightseeing, and hoping to make a cut in most instances), then why not play the John Deere classic (everything else pretty much equal) if your home base is in the US?

A "proper global tour" is earned by the patronage of the professionals.  Not as Greg "the ego" Norman envisioned. Good luck getting the sponsors (who, after all, pay most of the bills).

No certainly didn't discount it SR, maybe overlooked commenting on it. For the double dippers it wouldn't be radically different from what they do now. Even the likes of Patrick Reed & Koepka are happy to also travel widely. Also even if based in Florida, California isn't exactly an hour down the road so they have to travel anyway. I would suspect the players sponsors would want their brand spreading around the globe too.You might indeed struggle initially with event sponsors and how much they would actually invest in some places but once a global tour was up and running good sponsors would want to jump on board.

kwinigolfer wrote:Is that why you got a PhD, Mac?

The European Tour has proved over the past 35 years that the E.T.  has overtaken the USA in playing Team Golf.

Which for some reason is the most important part of Pro Golf to many (if not most) European Golf fans.

Its probably not a coincidence that Europe starting to win Ryder Cups when players started to play in the USA.

There just were not many Europeans playing the PGATour until the Seve generation.  Jacklin, Oosterhuis, notable exceptions.

So IMO, it is not the EuroTour that is winning the Ryder Cup.  It is Europeans playing both Tours (and primarily the US PGATour) that are winning the Ryder Cup.

As far as it being an exhibition, no one knows Nicklaus record in the Ryder Cup. And a significant part of the golfing population can't even play the Ryder Cup.

Gary Player, Greg Norman, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh, Roberto DiVicenzo, Nick Price, Bobby Locke, Peter Thomson never got the opportunity to play a Ryder Cup

super_realist wrote:The tennis tour is global, you could not be a top player and not travel.

But you could make equal amount of money by travelling less?

JAS-

Koepka gave up his EuroTour membership.

Traveling from Florida to California is not trivial.  But it does not involve immigration, visas, passports, customs, different currency, different languages like a Flight from London to Doha would require.

pedro wrote:

super_realist wrote:The tennis tour is global, you could not be a top player and not travel.

But you could make equal amount of money by travelling less?

No, not really, there really isn't the concentration of 250, 500 and Masters series events in one place over a year. Furthermore it's complicated by the change in surfaces which is defined by geography, whilst seasonal changes also have an influence on where tournaments are being played. If you were only interested in 250 Point events, you might do just as well on either side, but otherwise, no, you wouldn't.

If you were a very low level player on Challenger events, you might be able to stick with America or Europe, but actual ATP events in order to make money, you have to be where the tournaments are taking place, and there are just too many "swings" to stay in one place.

It would be a bit like saying, you could be an F1 driver, but you can only be arsed to drive in Europe, yeah, you'll make some money, but you won't do as well as if you follow the events around.

GPB wrote:JAS-

Koepka gave up his EuroTour membership.

Traveling from Florida to California is not trivial.  But it does not involve immigration, visas, passports, customs, different currency, different languages like a Flight from London to Doha would require.

Going to Doha isn't a problem at all and language certainly isn't an issue.

Another big factor that make the US tour attractive for advertisers is that you have a relatively large, homogenous TV audience (same language, significant disposable income in large segments) with a desire to stay tuned into a "live" sporting event. It's why the Open Championship has the lowest US viewership of all majors (certainly not the golf or venues). While almost all other forms of Video entertainment play just fine on demand (I am almost done "Peaky Blinders" 3rd season!) or in rerun, sports absolutely do not.

Also, one of my clients is Mutual of Omaha who are big sponsors of PGAT players. They only sell product in the US (in any significance) so I assure you they are not concerned with international brand recognition.