American golfer Scottie Scheffler remains atop the world golf rankings for another week, ahead of Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy and compatriot Wyndham Clark, while Spain’s Jon Rahm, now competing on the LIV circuit, drops to fifth place.
Scottie Scheffler, results
Scheffler leads the table with an average of 14.86 points, holding a comfortable lead over McIlroy (7.21), who clinched victory alongside Ireland’s Shane Lowry at the Zurich Classic last Sunday, and Clark (6.42). Xander Schauffele (6.05) surpasses Rahm (6.01), who finished third at the Adelaide tournament in the Saudi series.
Swedish prodigy Ludvig Aberg, Norwegian Viktor Hovland, and American Patrick Cantlay follow suit, while Brian Harman moves ahead of Max Homa to claim the ninth spot.
World Golf Rankings Week 17
Scottie Scheffler (USA) – 14.86 points/average
Rory McIlroy (NIR) – 7.21 points/average
Wyndham Clark (USA) – 6.42 points/average
Xander Schauffele (USA) – 6.05 points/average
Jon Rahm (ESP) – 6.01 points/average
Ludvig Aberg (SWE) – 5.72 points/average
Viktor Hovland (NOR) – 5.40 points/average
Patrick Cantlay (USA) – 4.93 points/average
Brian Harman (USA) – 4.18 points/average
Max Homa (USA) – 4.18 points/average
The push for the creation of the Official World Golf Rankings came from the tournament committee of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, which in the 1980s realized that their method of sending invitations for the British Open, based on analyzing each tour individually, was increasingly excluding high-level players who divided their commitments across multiple tours. Additionally, influential sports manager Mark McCormack played a pivotal role as the first chairman of the international committee overseeing the ranking’s creation. The system used to develop the ranking was based on McCormack’s World Golf Rankings, previously published in his World of Professional Golf Annual from 1968 to 1985, which was an unofficial ranking not used for other purposes like selecting players to invite to tournaments.
The first ranking was published before the 1986 edition of The Masters. The top six players were Bernhard Langer, Severiano Ballesteros, Sandy Lyle, Tom Watson, Mark O’Meara, and Greg Norman. While the top three were European players, among the top fifty, thirty-one were Americans.
Over the years, the method of calculating the ranking has changed significantly. Initially, the ranking was calculated over a three-year period, with the current year’s score multiplied by four, the previous year’s score by two, and the score from two years prior left unchanged. The ranking was compiled with the total score and overall points rounded to the nearest whole number. All tournaments recognized by professional tours and some invitationals were categorized, ranging from “major tournaments” (where the winner received 50 points) to “other tournaments” (where the winner received a minimum of 8 points). In each tournament, other finishers also received points proportionally to their placement, starting with the second-place finisher receiving 60% of the winner’s points.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login