Rival World Golf Rankings System Includes LIV Players

Grousing about the methodology behind the Official World Golf Rankings has become a sport unto itself.

This past Fall when it came to light that the winner of the DP World Tour Championship, the climax of the European circuit, would receive considerably less points than the leaderboard topper of the RSM Classic, a run of the mill PGA Tour event, many players took potshots including Jon Rahm, one of the most prominent players in the game.

“I think the OWGR right now is laughable,” the current No. 1 in the world opined at the time, pointing out that the St. Simons Island, Georgia event didn’t have one top-20 player in the world competing while the field of the DP World Tour’s season finale featured several top tier names including Matt Fitzpatrick, Rory McIlroy and himself.

Amongst pros, the sentiment that the OWGR seems to be driven more by divining rod than prowess with the putter when all the chips are on the line is a popular one across tour lines. Sensing a prime opportunity to go beyond the coverage of it and actually drive the conversation, Sports Illustrated has launched the SI World Golf Rankings.

“There has been this thread all year long with the World Golf Rankings of PGA Tour players complaining about it and the guys who jumped to LIV complaining about it. It’s something no one’s happy about and you start to think, can we do something more than continue to report this,” Jeff Ritter, Managing Director of SI Golf, says.

Following an internal dialog centered around how they could take an active role in the rankings conversation, SI set about concocting and then pressure testing criteria for a more equitable and tour agnostic rankings system.

“We believe there is a better way to capture the current state of professional golf that accounts for issues with the way that OWGR is ranking PGA Tour players and also to accommodate LIV golfers who do not receive OWGR points outside of the majors,” Chris Pirrone, Senior Vice President & General Manager of Sports Illustrated, says.

Teaming up with course analytics firm Golf Intelligence to give the newfangled rankings number crunching gravitas, the system measures the past 12 months of player results while also factoring strength-of-field and course difficulty into the equation. On the face the criteria seem akin to the official system but one key differentiator is that SI’s rankings have a greater recency bias with the last four months weighted the highest.

“This creates more week-to-week volatility and gives players the opportunity to move up faster. They could also crash down faster,” Ritter explains. Meanwhile the OWGR factors in a two year rolling period of player finishes and while it also tapers results, it does so far more gradually.

Ritter cites the example of Japanese professional Hideki Matsuyama who is ranked 22^nd in the OWGR but falls to 36^th in the SIWGR, mainly because by their criteria, his 2021 Masters victory is an obsolete data point.

“The immediacy we provide by cutting it off at 12 months really makes it a lot more relevant to the current state of golfers,” Pirrone says.

A big intrigue to golf fans, likely to be the subject of much debate, will be seeing where the LIV players end up. Dustin Johnson banked $38 million in his rookie season playing LIV Golf. The Ace’s team captain was the circuit’s individual champion and leading money winner. But since the fledgling three round no-cut breakaway circuit’s events don’t accrue OWGR points, DJ is currently officially ranked 54^th in the world. In the SI rankings the big hitting South Carolinian clocks in at No. 13.

The biggest delta in the top-100 is Eugenio Lopez-Chacarra, the Oklahoma State star who went straight from college to LIV where he topped the leaderboard at the Bangkok Invitational in the fall. The former Cowboys All-American is 84^th by SI’s tally and 1724th in the rankings that help determine the fields for major championships.

Considering how divisive LIV and player defections to the tour bankrolled by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund have been, the rankings may stoke a vigorous war of words among those who follow the sport closely.

While SI’s alternate rankings won’t carry the real-world tournament entry perks that come part and parcel with being ranked in the OWGR’s top 50, the hope is for the SIWGR to find a footing amongst fans, pro golfers and the analytics community.

“There is no ranking that is perfect but all the feedback that we’ve gotten has been on both sides of the same issues. People are poking holes in it in a positive way but we haven’t found anything that’s undermined it and we are going to continue to develop this and add data at different points and we think it’s going to result in robust debate and hopefully make golf more interesting,” Pirrone says.

SI’s rankings are sponsored by LA Golf, an equipment company whose player partners are both part of LIV. Asked if they considered the optics of picking the shaft-maker repped by Bryson DeChambeau and Dustin Johnson, SI doesn’t shy away from the question.

“We did. I think LA Golf is a company that is trying to disrupt and provide new technologies and that’s why they were so quick to align with this because they are interested in new and innovative things. This is not meant to be a pro-LIV thing but certainly there are going to be people out there that will debate that topic and that’s ok with us,” Pirrone explains.

“I think it’s important to emphasize that where the players fall is driven by the numbers. We didn’t sit down and say we need to come up with a way for Dustin Johnson to be in the top-20 even though objectively people might say, he is probably one of the top 20 golfers in the world. We just came up with calculations and let the chips fall,” Ritter adds.

While they make an interesting talking point, much of the future relevancy of SI’s rankings hinge on the OWGR maintaining the current status quo. But the OWGR’s Technical Committee, comprised of reps from golf’s main governing bodies is not sitting idle. Currently 24 tours spanning the globe are awarded Official World Golf Rankings points. The newest addition, Gira de Golf Professional de Mexicana earned eligibility in January following a 16 month review process.

LIV applied for rankings accreditation last July and the timetable to reach a verdict mirrors the clock on the aforementioned Mexico-based league’s inclusion, a decision could come by late Fall.