Capelle On Golf

I much prefer the World Golf Rankings for ranking the players because the points they award are tied to the strength of the field. In contrast, the FedExCup has offers up a set number for the typical tour event.

Still, over the course of the season the cream among regulars on the PGA Tour rises to the top. The top two players on the FedExCup and WGR are Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. Now that the season is 20 weeks old, that could be long enough for the rankings to represent a fair approximation of the top players. Assuming this to be true, the rankings could be useful in determining the strength of the field at each event.

I conducted a quick evaluation of the field using the FedExCup points list filter at last week’s AT&T. There was only one player in the top 10 on the FedExCup standings, and just nine from the top 50. The weak field was verified by the lowly number of WGR points (26) that Ryuji Imada earned for his first PGA Tour victory.

After taking a break following THE PLAYERS, a number of the big names are back in action at this week’s Crown Plaza Invitational at Colonial. Members of the top 10 include Mickelson, Anthony Kim, Geoff Ogilvy, and K.J. Choi. In sum, 29 of the top 50 in the cup standings are playing this week.

If you want to determine the start quality of an event (especially one that Tiger’s not playing) then go to the leaderboard at PGAtour.com. Click the FC filter at the top left of the leaderboard and the field will be instantaneously arranged in the order of their position on the points list.

And here I was, thinking all this time that there was absolutely no value to the FedExCup points. But now it turns out there is. Still, I would rather see that filter show the WGR as it does on the leaderboard for the European Tour.