COMMUNITY

I can see where you are coming from but the standards that you have for them are really high. You have to remember that the PGA and European Tours are both stacked with players that are alot better as a whole than the tours have ever been. Some one would have to play like Tiger did 10 years ago inorder to accomplish 1 or two of these goals. It would be almost impossible for there to be multi-contenders for the #1 spot.

Man, those are some lofty standards. I disagree that any money standard should be applied. Over time, money standards become outdated. Tournaments change their prize money and inflation also affects how meaningful money standards become. I took a quick look at the all-time money leader list and noticed that number 98 on the list is Chris Riley with about $11 million. Ryan Palmer who has been around only a few years is number 100 also with $11 million. Lee Trevino's name is nowhere on that list. Trevino is a guy that has won 23 times on the PGA Tour, 29 times on the Senior PGA, six majors and his name appears nowhere on the all-time money list. You'll also notice that your don't find any of the old-timers like Hogan on that list. Yeah, I know that these are old numbers but that's the point. Money standards are meaningless. Victories on the other hand, are very meaningful.

In my opinion, no one should become Number 1 without victories. No player should become Number 1 simply on the strength of a bunch of top ten finishes. That's almost equivalent to what the top 125 list has done to the drive of the lower level players. There are a lot of players that make a great living and rarely win anything. Arnold Palmer has discussed what the top 125 exempt list has done to the drive of those players.

Whatever standard is used to determine Number 1, it should reflect that the player has been playing regularly and WINNING not just making a ton of money. Just my opinion and it's like noses, everybody has one.

First off, there always HAS to be a #1. Without that #2, #3 and so on don't mean much. How deserving he is doesn't matter that much. When somebody better comes along, so be it.

I'm of the opinion that, especially in golf, the real #1 is the guy that wins THIS week. To be replaced next week by the guy that wins then. It's much more fair and everybody gets a chance. The problem with any contrived statistic based ranking system, be it BCS, NASCAR, or OWGR, is the arbitrary nature of the point system that allows an individual to finish with a weaker record of wins and still lead the standings.

You can play all manner of numbers games to try to fix the system, but it's the concept itself I think is flawed.

No worse than what we have in place now.

Personally, I think that they should do it by having a way to determine the strength of the field each week. Then some how they get the golfers average finishing position compaired to the strength of the fields that they played against over say the past year or 18 months. This would make finishing high in majors and other big events count more. Winning small events or coming in the top 5 would still give them stats to add to the equation but they wouldnt be counted as heavily because of the field strength factor. The #1 is determined by consistancy and not by winning. Who is the better golfer? Someone that wins one tourny and gets alot of points for it but then misses the cut 4 times or some one that makes the cut all five tourneys and also posts 2 or 3 top 10s. I say it is the one that consistantly places well on a regular basis.

Here's who can quailify for the #1 ranking seeing how you did it.

A) Padraig Harrington, Angel Cabrera, Lucas Glover, Stewart Cink, YE Yang, Phil Mickelson, Graeme McDowell, Louis Oosthiuzen, Martin Kaymer, Charl Schwartzel, Rory McIlroy, Darren Clarke.

B) Phil Mickelson, Steve Stricker, Martin Kaymer, Tiger Woods.

C) I don't think anyone

D) Not looking at that one, but probably Phil, Kuchar, Stricker, Westwood, and Donald.

The only one who even fits this mold is Phil. This being a guy who's won twice since January 2010 and although one was The Masters, the other was the Shell Houston Open. Sorry to say but even with the major record Donald is #1. He's the only one with 3 wins anywhere this season, and they were a WGC, the Euro Tour's flagship event in a playoff over Westwood, and the Scottish Open with guys like Phil, Kuchar, Westwood, McDowell in the field. Unfortunately, your criteria has some work to do. :)

My ongoing main problem with the OWGR is that it goes back two years and that not enough weight is put on the last 12 months. For me, I'd put the most weight on recent performance and gradually reduce the weight as you go back in time so that there is much less weight on performance from a year ago and especially two years ago.

So Luke, if you want to go back to 3 years, I believe the OWGR would look even more outdated. You would have Tiger, Furyk, and Els (to name a few players) at or near the top of the rankings- but those rankings wouldn't accurately reflect who was playing the best golf in the present time. As you know, Tiger has had only a few good tournament results in the last 20 months. There are many players (well more than the 19 ahead of him in the rankings) who have more to show over this time period than Tiger. The main reason Tiger is ranked #20 is due to his performance from 20 to 24 months ago, which doesn't accurately reflect the current state of Tiger's golf game whatsoever.

I don't mean to just single Tiger out though. Furyk and Els have done very little this year and should therefore be ranked lower. Furyk is #76 in FedEx Cup points and Els is #139. I feel that their OWGR should be in the same neighborhood as their FedEx rank, especially this late in the PGA tour season (but their OWGR's are #22 and #25, respectively).

The main issue with the #1 position is that there hasn't been a dominant golfer since Tiger's decline (and there might not be one for the forseeable future). You can put Donald, McIlroy, Westwood, and Kaymer's, etc., names in a hat and designate a #1 player by default. All of these players have some good results, but there isn't a standout among this group right now.

Shouldn't the player who performs the best in the World Golf Championships be more favored. Like the majors they showcase the best players in the world without all the amateurs and past winners crowding the field.