New golf ranking system to be in place from 2022 summer

Dubai: Changes to the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) are set to begin in the summer of 2022.

As per the governing board of OWGR, ranking points for each player are accumulated over a two-year “rolling” period, with points awarded for each tournament maintained for a 13-week period. This places emphasis on recent performances.

Points are reduced from there in equal amounts for the remaining 91 weeks of the two-year ranking period.

Also, the field rating for each event will be set by every player in the field, not just the top 200 golfers in the current ranking.

“What these reviews revealed was that through the use of assigned values in its strength-of-field calculation, which includes tour minimums, flagship tournaments, and the home tour rating, there was some level of bias in the system, which means that there was some level of performances that were either being undervalued or overvalued,” said Billy Schroder, a member of the OWGR’s technical committee.

Major championships will continue to award 100 first-place points, while The Players Championship will award 80. All other tournaments will award ranking points according to the strength and depth of their fields.

“Since 1986, the Tours eligible for inclusion have grown in number from 6 to 23 and the rankings have been continuously modified to accommodate this expansion and to improve accuracy,” OWGR chairman Peter Dawson was quoted in ESPN.

“We are confident the further enhancements announced today will best position OWGR for the years ahead.”

All tournaments from August 8, 2022 will employ the calculation. The first official ranking will be revealed on August 14.