Capelle On Golf

PGA Championship Coverage

At last week’s Canadian Open there was little movement in the upper regions of the World Golf Ranking because most of the top players took the week off. As a result, Chez Reavie earned only 30 WGR points for winning. Meanwhile, in Russia, Mikael Lundberg earned a scant 24 WGR points for his European Tour victory.

All hell is about to break lose in the WGR over the next two weeks because the top 50+ players in the world are competing in two point rich events back to back. The winner at this week’s WGC – Bridgestone will earn 78 WGR points while the champion at the PGA will receive 100 big points.

Now consider the evolution of the WGR over the 2008 season. At the end of 2007, 1.43 points separated the fourth and tenth players. Now the difference is a scant .48 points. Since members of the top 50 can be expected to earn a big share of the WGR points over the next 11 days, a huge shakeup is inevitable.

WGR - End of 2007
19.62 Tiger Woods
8.72 Phil Mickelson
6.55 Jim Furyk
6.51 Ernie Els
6.45 Steve Stricker
6.00 Justin Rose
5.81 Adam Scott
5.57 Padraig Harrington
5.15 K.J. Choi
5.08 Vijay Singh

Current WGR – Player – Divisor (after the PGA) – Impact of winning the PGA
19.42 Tiger Woods (40)
9.54 Phil Mickelson (44 – 2.27 points)
6.38 Padraig Harrington (54 – 1.85)
5.42 Adam Scott (49 – 2.04)
5.42 Ernie Els (56 – 1.79)
5.39 Sergio Garcia (51 – 1.96)
5.35 Stewart Cink (49 – 2.04)
5.32 Geoff Ogilvy (46 – 2.17)
5.24 Steve Stricker (45 – 2.22)
4.94 Henrik Stenson (50 – 2.00)

A player’s progress in the next two weeks depends largely on three things: the points they win, the points others earn, and their divisor. Among the top 10, Mickelson’s WGR average would go up 2.27 points with a win at the PGA while Els’ would advance only 1.79 because of his divisor (56) is much larger.

Players out of the top 10 could also skyrocket in the rankings come August 10th. For example, let’s say Anthony Kim finished in solo 10th at the WGC, then won the PGA. His average would soar from 4.80 to about 6.80. Then, depending of course on how Harrington and the rest divided up the rest of the points, he could become the new third best player in the world!

I know, the FedExCup is coming and the TV people won’t let us forget it for a moment. But does anyone besides the PGA Tour really care who’s ranked whatever? On the other hand, the WGR features all of the best in the world, it has plenty of history, it is fun to follow, and it is in for a big shakeup in the next two weeks.

Now if we could just get networks to flash some graphics showing how the WGR will be impacted as the play unfolds over the next two weeks rather than jamming those ill-conceived CorporateCup standings down our throats.