[Philip Gawith]

i know this is hardly an original subject, but....

this morning the rankings will again be published and tiger will still be number one. for at least a year now, you could only justify this as being an assessment of talent, rather than outcomes. els, mickelson, singh and goosen have all been better than him for a year or so. i think this system is doing the sport a discredit. rankings are not supposed to be about talent, but about outcomes. i am sure tiger will again be number one, and will deserve to be, but shouldn't the system be overhauled if it is delivering such distorted outcomes? any recommendations?

[James Edwards]

Philip,

Excellent question and one I must agree with.  Tiger is one of my favourite players and yesterday proved why he still is one of my favourite players.  He bogeyed 12, which essentially took him out of the running but still tipped his cap in appreciation of the crowds applause...  

He has steadily been going downhill, but this week I think we saw the start of the uphill curve again for Tiger.  He didnt play that bad this week did he?  His driver was straighter, his irons were better, his putting was great and his short game was on fire!  

But, with all that said...  He is not the No 1 in the world at the moment...  

Its tough because in his winning years he built that incredible points lead up - 8 majors in a few years is good going, but the rankings should reflect current play over the years tournaments...  must do!  The first four places are clearly between these guys below

1.  Singh / Els?
2.  Els / Singh?
3.  Mickelson?
4.  Retief?

[Philip Gawith]

the system seems to have too much history in it (what happened two years ago seems of limited relevance). i think they need to find a way of making old events count less. also, and i think some of the weightings are wrong. tiger has only held onto number one because he has played so well in the WGC tournaments, which are limited entry and include matchplay. they seem to carry too much weight. if you made those two changes you have to think the rankings would more accurately reflect common sense.

as for detail - ernie seems to have been the most consistent over last 12 months. vijay off the boil in the last four months, phil on the boil in last four months.  so i would put ernie first, then phil (1,2,3 in the majors) and then vijay.

[Dan Kelly]

The guys who are being ranked care where they're ranked -- because entry to some events is governed by the rankings.

But why should anyone else care?

We all know who the top golfers are. Why do *we* need a *system* to rank them?

[Philip Gawith]

because life is simpler when the public "scoreboards" - which exist in all areas of life - are a good reflection of the underlying reality they pretend to represent. we may not need them, but we notice them, and they are irritating when they are wrong.

[Carlyle Rood]

I plugged the data into the new BCS formula for college football, resulting in the following.

1. Phil Mickelson
2. Ernie Els
3. Retief Goosen
4. Tiger Woods
5. Vijay Singh

By the way, Phil was #1 in the AP poll and Els was #1 in the Coaches' poll.  Goosen was #2 in both polls.

[David_Tepper]

Gary Van Sickle has a current column on this very subject:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/writers/gary_van_sickle/07/18/british.open.sun/index.html

[John_Conley]

Phillip:

Quantifying a subjective quality like greatness is difficult.  Any computer ranking like the (formerly) Sony World Golf Ranking or equivalent in tennis is attempting to put into numbers what everyone feels.

When Woods was a clear-cut #1 (his points hovered around 17 while next was about 7) no one cared what the criteria were.  Now, with his margin having evaporated, you raise a good point.  How far back do we have to go for something to be relevant?

Keep in mind that it will never be an absolute predictor.  Case in point is Hamilton.  Did the 50th ranked player in the world just win, or the 15th?  As soon as the British Open data point is added you have an entirely different result.  (This happens often in tennis.)

The flip is that Tommy Tolles dueling with Nick Faldo in playoff for a Major would have most people tilting a nod to Faldo because of his experience.  His Major victories were a decade ago, yet they are still significant.

The World Golf Rank has a two-year (I think, and it might have been three) lookback while the Sagarin Golfweek equivalent just goes back one.  They have much different results.  I don't know that you could argue either to be a better predictor for Majors, but I do think the Golfweek version probably is more accurate to handicap a regular Tour stop.

As for "distorting outcomes"... I don't agree.

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