The ranking system for Tour players is quite complex, and apparently pretty invalid. All it took for Tiger to regain his position at the top of the golf world was a single win. It took Vijay Singh ten wins to overcome Tiger’s lead last year due to built-in inertia of the system accounting for wins in previous seasons.
Yeah, I’d say Tiger is the best player in golf. But do rankings mean anything to any of us, or are they simply scorecards for advertisers and sponsors to use in bidding for the services of the current leading pros?
The latter.
Yeah, but Vijay was just barely ahead of Tiger after his jump to the top. Stands to reason that a new win by Tiger would put him back in the lead.
With golf being such a consistency game, it makes sense to me to count all of one’s earlier performances. It’s just like calculating your handicap. And until recently, wasn’t Tiger playing in more tournaments than Vijay?
Comment by Slice — March 11, 2005 @ 2:33 pm
You’re probably right. I don’t know enough about the rating system to be sure. I thought the last twelve months carried significantly more weight than the previous twelve, but that appears to not be the case.
Anyway, does anyone really care?
Comment by Bunker — March 11, 2005 @ 5:01 pm
I have to agree that scorecards for advertisers sounds like the biggest use. It doesn’t really change who I enjoy watching, of course – I just want to see someone play well. Any pro golfer on a given day can make a shot that makes me cheer 🙂
Comment by Barb — March 13, 2005 @ 9:02 am
That’s how I look at it. I enjoy seeing someone make a real run, like David Toms did a couple of weeks ago. I get bored seeing the same player in the lead week after week.
Comment by Bunker — March 13, 2005 @ 2:49 pm