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After Jon Rahm won the DP World Tour Championship and Rory McIlroy collected the season-long race, the latter — ranked No. 1 in the Official World Golf Rankings at the time — took the microphone on the 18th green at the final event of the DP World Tour season and said the following about the former.
“I’d like to say I’m right up there as the best player in the world, but Jon (Rahm) is right up there with me,” said McIlroy. He is such a great player. Europe are so lucky to have him and I’m looking forward to playing with him in Rome next year.”
There has been much made of golf’s most prominent ranking systems in recent months. The OWGR has refused to rank LIV Golf players in the short term, which has caused elite talents like Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka to plummet in the most ubiquitous ranking system in the sport. Even when ranking points have been accrued, they have not been at the rate or in the specific manner some would like.
Rahm, coincidentally, has been among the most critical voices of the OWGR’s revamped system which launched at the end of last summer and discounts small fields even when they are made up of elite players. Even after winning his first two starts of 2023 (and four of his last six), Rahm is still ranked No. 3 in the world.
By definition, all rankings are subjective. All the inputs in a given rankings system are determined by people who believe those were the best inputs. There are a million things that could go into each ranking system, but only some of them are actually used.
Take Data Golf’s rankings, for example. It eschews winning for the sake of strokes gained — the best measurement we have of how good a player is compared to another player — and it looks at the last 50 rounds instead of the last two years (like the OWGR). In the Data Golf rankings, Rahm moved to No. 1 after his win on Sunday at The American Express. That could change soon,…
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Source : cbssports
