The Wie report
Deary diary,
Hi again. My friends have been telling me about some trash talking about me out there. I don't care, it really doesn't bother me. I understand, it comes with the territory.
I was really happy to see the new Rolex World Golf Rankings came out today. Let's see where I am. Oh, look (there), I'm No. 3 in the World, right behind Annika and Paula. Wow, I can't believe it, but it's still very cool. Hmmm... I don't see my friend Morgan on the list. These rankings must be really messed up. It's still great I'm No. 3, though.
That's all for now.
8 Comments:
Dear Michelle, that's funny that Morgan Pressel isn't even on the list of the best women golfers in the world. Maybe her grandma forget to send her name in?
The reason Pressel is not listed is the minimum requirement of 15 tournies in the last 2 years to qualify for the list. I think she has something like 7 right now. It will probably take at least half of the current LPGA season for her to qualify for the list. Now M.W. on the other hand has exactly... you guessed it... 15. The next lowest of the top 20 on the list, Paula Creamer with 35.
Now I am not saying that the requirements were drawn up to specifically include her some but it seems like an incredible coincidence that M.W. was right on the minimum number.
I was just surprised how many names on the list I had never heard of.
An amazing coincidence. For the answer go search the grassy knoll.
Andrewsdad,
The reason there are so many unknowns are because of the credence they give to performance on the Japanese Ladies Tour. Dottie Pepper had a few reservations regarding that.
she also had reservations about the fact that if you play less events, your good performances count for more. Thus, Wie is on the list. How does this work? Your percentage of top finishes in 15 events (Wie) vs. your percentage of top finishes in 35 (Creamer). Creamer may have more top finishes overall, but her percentage out of total events is lower. Thus, a lower seeding.
All in all, controversy does bring press to your organization, but I think in this case, the LPGA is only hurting itself. The LPGA Vice President Libba Galloway (no, that isn't a typo) said that the rankings would sort out over time, and would represent the player's abilities accordingly, but I do not see how that is the case by recognizing the overseas competitions on similar ground to the LPGA events as well as rewarding those that play less events.
Thanks P.F.
The best explanation I can find about the rankings are here.
From what I can tell, the rankings should shake out some once the Rolex rankings get better defined. My reading of the info says you have to use the rankings to determine the rankings so if you are starting from scratch, that means the first few rankings will be kind of questionable. I just do not see how you get a system where Gulbis is #18 and Christina Kim is #28, both decent names on the best tour in the world yet there are a number of names, specifically from Japan that are ranked ahead of them that I have never heard of. If they are giving the same or similar number of points for Japanese Tour events, they may need to tweak that in the future.
As far as the 15 event minimum, Wie is the only one with less than 20 events and there are only 2 other players in the top 50 that have less than Creamers 35 events.
So the question is should the rankings be set so that someone who does not have status and plays a limited schedule is eligible and as Power Fade stated, gets a higher ranking because of the percentages, especially if they play in the bigger events which have more points?
If the rules are setup to be fair for all, I am OK with it, if the rules were set to favor a single person, be it M.W., Pressel or the commisioners niece, then that is a bad policy in my yardage book.
And FYI... I am not Mad... I snuck in 9 holes on my way into work this AM and even got in the door 5 minutes early. Disappointed with my putting but not mad.
Two side notes:
Strength of field is a statistic as well, and Wie tends to only play in the toughest field events.
regarding the number of events, it would seem that at a minimum they would set the minimum number of events to be ranked as the number of events you must play to get into their Tour Championship at the end of the year (I think it is 10 or 12 a year...but that is a guess). That being the case, wouldn't you have to play this many to get in the ranking (20 or 24 per my guess above for two years). As you stated, putting it at the exact number that Wie has seems far too fishy, as Andrewsdad duly noted in his original post.
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Regarding the World Golf Ranking:
I think the world ranking should include all events played on all professional tours including the PGA tour. If Rolex did this, then Michelle's performances in those events would count toward her world ranking and drop her to where she belongs.
The current ranking as it stands is a joke. The only one that makes sense is Annika at number 1.
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