Official World Golf Rankings

History

The intiative for the creation of the Official World Golf Rankings came from the Championship Committee of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, which found in the 1980s that its system of issuing invitations to The Open Championship on a tour by tour basis was omitting an increasing number of top players because more of them were dividing their time between tours, and from preeminent sports agent Mark McCormack, who was the first chairman of the International Advisory Committee which oversees the rankings.

Related Topics:
Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews - The Open Championship - Mark McCormack

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The first ranking list was published prior to the 1986 Masters Tournament. The top six ranked golfers were: Bernhard Langer, Seve Ballesteros, Sandy Lyle, Tom Watson, Mark O'Meara and Greg Norman. Thus the top three were all European, but there were thirty one Americans in the top fifty (compared with eighteen in early August 2005).

Related Topics:
Masters Tournament - Bernhard Langer - Seve Ballesteros - Sandy Lyle - Tom Watson - Mark O'Meara - Greg Norman

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Initially the rankings were calculated over a three year period, but this was reduced to two in 1995. A few years after that the tapering system was changed so that instead of one half of the points for each result being deducted after a year and the other half after two years, one eighth is deducted every thirteen weeks. At first only the Championship Committee of the Royal & Ancient used the rankings for official purposes, but the PGA Tour recognised them in 1990 and in 1997 all five of the then prinicipal mens golf tours did so. The rankings, which had previously been called the Sony Rankings, were renamed the Official World Golf Rankings at that time. They are run from offices in Virginia Water in Surrey, England.

Related Topics:
PGA Tour - Tours - Virginia Water - Surrey - England

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Twelve players have been World No.1. Seve Ballesteros took over from Berhard Langer and vied with Greg Norman for the No.1 spot, then Nick Faldo took over as Greg Norman?s rival. Ian Woosnam and Fred Couples held the position through 1991 and 1992 before Nick Faldo took over again through to 1994, when Nick Price?s career year took him to No.1. After a single week at No.1 by Tom Lehman, Tiger Woods dominated the position from 1997 to 2005 with brief interruptions from Ernie Els and David Duval. In September 2004 Vijay Singh became the twelfth World No.1, and he and Woods have swapped the position several times in 2005.

Related Topics:
Seve Ballesteros - Nick Faldo - Ian Woosnam - Fred Couples - Nick Price - Tom Lehman - Ernie Els - David Duval - Vijay Singh

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