Official World Golf Ranking


The Official World Golf Ranking is a system for rating the performance level of professional golfers. It was started in 1986. The rankings are based on a player's position in individual tournaments over a "rolling" two-year period. New rankings are calculated each week. During 2018, nearly 400 tournaments on 20 tours were covered by the ranking system. All players competing in these tournaments are included in the rankings. In 2025, 24 tours factored into the world rankings. As well as being of general interest, the rankings have an additional importance, in that they are used as one of the qualifying criteria for entry into a number of leading tournaments.
The chair of the OWGR is former world number twelve and 2008 Masters Tournament champion Trevor Immelman.

History

The initiative for the creation of the Official World Golf Ranking came from the Championship Committee of the Royal and 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. The system used to calculate the rankings was developed from McCormack's World Golf Rankings, which were published in his World of Professional Golf Annual from 1968 to 1985, although these were purely unofficial and not used for any wider purpose.
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 31 Americans in the top 50.
The method of calculation of the rankings has changed considerably over the years. Initially, the rankings were calculated over a three-year period, with the current year's points multiplied by four, the previous year's points by two and the third year's points by one. Rankings were based on the total points and points awarded were restricted to integer values. All tournaments recognised by the world's professional tours, and some leading invitational events, were graded into categories ranging from major championship to "other tournaments". In all events, other finishers received points on a diminishing scale that began with runners-up receiving 60% of the winners' points, and the number of players in the field receiving points would be the same as the points awarded to the winner. In a major, for example, all players finishing 30th to 40th would receive 2 points, and all players finishing 50th or higher, 1 point.
Beginning in April 1989, the rankings were changed to be based on the average points per event played instead of simply total points earned, subject to a minimum divisor of 60. This was in order to more accurately reflect the status of some players, who played in far fewer events than their younger contemporaries but demonstrated in major championships that their ranking was artificially low. Tom Watson, for example, finished in the top 15 of eight major championships between 1987 and 1989, yet had a "total points" ranking of just 40th; his ranking became a more realistic 20th when based on "average points". A new system for determining the "weight" of each tournament was also introduced, based on the strength of the tournament's field in terms of their pre-tournament world rankings. Major championships were guaranteed to remain at 50 points for the winners, and all other events could attain a maximum of 40 points for the winner if all of the world's top 100 were present. In practice most PGA Tour events awarded around 25 points to the winner, European Tour events around 18 and JPGA Tour events around 12.
In 1996, the three-year period was reduced to two years, with the current year now counting double and the minimum number of events reduced from 60 to 40. Points were extended to more of the field, beginning in 2000, and were no longer restricted to integer values. Beginning in September 2001, the tapering system was changed so that instead of the points for each result being doubled if they occurred in the most recent 12 months, one eighth of the initial "multiplied up" value was deducted every 13 weeks. This change effectively meant that players could now be more simply described as being awarded 100 points for winning a major. Beginning in 2007, the system holds the points from each event at full value for 13 weeks and then reduces them in equal weekly increments over the remainder of the two-year period.
In 2010, a maximum number of tournaments was introduced as well as the minimum of 40. The maximum number was initially set to 60 from January 2010 and was reduced by 2 every six months until it reached 52 in January 2012. This means that since 2012 only the player's 52 most recent tournaments are used to calculate his ranking average.
At first only the Championship Committee of the Royal and Ancient used the rankings for official purposes, but the PGA Tour recognized them in 1990, and in 1997 during the Open Championship, all five of the then principal men's golf tours and the four major championships endorsed the ranking. The rankings, which had previously been called the Sony Ranking, were renamed the Official World Golf Ranking at that time.

Organization

Since 2004 the rankings have been produced by a company called "Official World Golf Ranking" which took over the ranking system from IMG. The company is a company limited by guarantee incorporated in the United Kingdom with its registered office at the European Tour Building at Wentworth. The company has seven members: The PGA of America, the International Federation of PGA Tours, the USGA, the PGA Tour, Augusta National, the R&A and the PGA European Tour, who each contribute to the running of the company; £50,000 each in 2020. There is a chairman and seven directors, one appointed by each member, who make up the Governing board. There is also a Technical committee.
One of the objects of the company is "to devise, maintain, review, update, administer and promote the recognition of a system that fairly ranks the relative performances of male professional golfers participating in the leading golf tournaments throughout the world, taking into account all relevant factors including, amongst other matters, the date of the tournament, the prestige of the tournament, the standard of the other participants and the value of the tournament prize fund."

Tours included in the rankings

The ranking system is endorsed by the four major championships and six major professional tours, five of which are charter members of the International Federation of PGA Tours:
Points are also awarded for high finishes on other tours:
Starting in 2012, some events received points that had not previously received any. These were the Sunshine Tour "Winter Series" and the PGA Tour of Australasia "State Based and Regional Tournaments".
Previous tours:
In July 2022, Official World Golf Ranking announced that it had received an application from LIV Golf for it to be included in the ranking system. LIV Golf's application for OWGR status was denied October 2023. Other ranking systems do include LIV Golf.

Calculation of the rankings

Source:
Simply put, a golfer's World Ranking is obtained by dividing their points total by the number of events they have played, which gives their average. Players are then ranked according to their average, highest first.

Event ranking

The first stage in the calculation is the ranking of each event. For most events the ranking depends on the current world rankings of the participating golfers and the participation of the leading golfers from the "home tour".
A "world rating value" is calculated. Any golfer currently ranked in the world top 200 is given a rating value. The world No. 1 is allocated 45, the No. 2 is allocated 37, the No. 3 is allocated 32, down to those ranked between 101 and 200 who are allocated a rating value of 1 each. The maximum possible world rating value is 925 but this would only happen if all the top 200 golfers were playing.
A "home tour rating value" is calculated. The leading 30 golfers from the previous year's "home tour" are given rating values. Most tours use earnings lists for their top 30, but the PGA Tour currently uses the FedEx points list calculated after the playoffs. Major championships and WGC events use the current world top 30 list. The home tour No. 1 is allocated 8 down to those from 16 to 30 who are allocated a rating value of 1 each. The maximum home tour rating value is 75 if all the top 30 players from the home tour are competing. The total home tour rating value is limited to 75% of the world rating value.
The world rating value and home tour rating value are added together to give a "Strength of Field" value. This is then converted into an event ranking using a table. As examples, a strength of field value of 10 converts to an event ranking of 8, a strength of field value of 100 converts to an event ranking of 24, while a strength of field value of 500 converts to an event ranking of 62.
Major championships have a fixed event ranking of 100 points. For each tour, there is a minimum ranking for each event. In addition, some tours have a "flagship event" that is guaranteed a higher ranking.
TourMinimum
points		Flagship eventMinimum
points
PGA Tour24The Players Championship80
European Tour24BMW PGA Championship64
Japan Golf Tour16Japan Open Golf Championship32
PGA Tour of Australasia16 Australian Open32
Sunshine Tour14 Alfred Dunhill Championship32
Asian Tour14Indonesian Masters20
Korn Ferry Tour14Korn Ferry Tour Championship20
Challenge Tour12Challenge Tour Grand Final17
Korean Tour9n/an/a
PGA Tour Canada6n/an/a
PGA Tour Latinoamérica6n/an/a
Asian Development Tour6n/an/a
PGA Tour China4/6n/an/a
China Tour4/6n/an/a
Alps Tour4/6n/an/a
Nordic Golf League4/6n/an/a
ProGolf Tour4/6n/an/a
MENA Golf Tour3/5n/an/a
Big Easy Tour3/5n/an/a
All Thailand Golf Tour5n/an/a
Professional Golf Tour of India5n/an/a
Japan Challenge Tour4n/an/a

Seventy-two-hole tournaments which are reduced to 54 holes retain full points, but if a tournament is reduced to 36 holes, its points allocation is reduced by 25%. Fifty-four-hole tournaments reduced to 36 holes retain full points.