Looking for credibility since its inception in 1986, the Official World Golf Ranking struck gold in 1999 when the Masters Tournament and the PGA Tour began to use it for the first time.
Golfers in the top 50 in the ranking at the end of the 1998 season and those who moved into the top 50 one month before the Masters earned invitations. Eleven golfers made it into the Masters this year through the top 50 qualification, 10 of those from the final 1998 rankings.
Two of the three lucrative World Golf Championship tournaments, which debuted this year, take their entire field from the ranking. The top 64 in the World Ranking made the rich Andersen Consulting Match Play earlier this year. The top 50 will make the American Express Championship Nov. 4-7 at Valderrama, Spain.
``It's obviously another candle on the cake,'' said Mark McCormack, the man who came up with the World Golf Ranking concept, which started with the 1986 Masters Tournament and was known then as the Sony Ranking.
McCormack, chairman and CEO of the International Management Group, said: ``It's inevitable that everyone is going to use it. I'm very pleased that the Masters had the vision to use it in the way they have.''
The Masters followed the lead of another major championship, the British Open, which has exempted the top 50 for years.
Starting in July 1997, the leaders of the world's five golf organizations -- the PGA Tour, the European Tour, the Japan Tour, the PGA Tour of Australasia and the Southern Africa PGA Tour -- joined forces on the governing board of the World Golf Ranking with representatives of the four major championships (the Masters, the PGA Championship, the British Open and the U.S. Open).
The Masters Tournament representative on the governing board is Will Nicholson, chairman of the Augusta National's competition committee.
In the ranking, points are earned by players over a two-year period, based on their finishes in international tournaments. Tournaments are rated according to the strength of field based on the number of the world's top 100 players entered.
Points earned in the most recent 52-week period are doubled. Each player is then ranked according to his average points per tournament, which is determined by dividing his total number of points by the tournaments he has played over that two-year period. There is a minimum requirement of 20 tournaments for each 52-week period.
``Each year we have made some changes in the ranking as we've needed to do so,'' McCormack said. ``The idea here is to identify the top players in the world. We wanted to make it as accurate as possible. If you kind of look at the list, it's looks pretty good right now as I see it.''
Critics contend that the two-year ranking period is not a fair gauge of a player's standing in the world at present.
``It's totally irrelevant what you did two years ago,'' golfer Olin Browne said. ``It's like saying because somebody gets the pole at Indy in 1997 he should get it in 1998 too. What's that got to do with anything? Nothing. It's got to be more current.''
McCormack says the two-year period, which puts emphasis on the current year, is the only fair way to do it.
``The idea really stemmed from the sport of tennis,'' McCormack said. ``Years go, Bjorn Borg was by far the No. 1 tennis player in the world, and then he retired at age 26. And a year later he was totally off the rankings. He was zero, and there were 500 players ranked ahead of him. There wasn't one person you could talk to in the sport of tennis that wouldn't tell you that if at that moment Borg stepped back on the tennis court he would be somewhere much better than 500th in the world.''
If not for the two-year rating period, Greg Norman would not have qualified for this year's Masters based on the World Ranking qualifications. Norman dropped from No. 1 to No. 18 in the ranking from the end of 1997 to end of 1998, having missed the final seven months of the year because of shoulder surgery. Before the surgery, he'd played in only three PGA Tour events. Norman was 31st in the ranking in mid-March.
``Nobody would say that Greg Norman isn't among the top 50 players in the world today,'' McCormack said. ``If we had a one-year system, he wouldn't be there (the Masters).''
There is some question about that. Even if he didn't meet the World Ranking criteria, Norman might have received a special international player invitation from the club.
At any rate, the World Golf Ranking is here to stay. In its early years, there was some doubt about its merit or need. Many in the golf community simply didn't take it seriously because of flaws in the system.
Starting with calendar year 1998, the No. 1 player in the ranking for the most number of weeks in a year received the Mark McCormack Award. The announcement of, and presentation of the award, occurred last month at the Bay Hill Invitational. Tiger Woods, the top player for 43 weeks in 1998, received the award.
``We all have our own little egos, and it is really neat to be able to compare ourselves and our golfing scales and golfing prowess among players that we don't get to see every day,'' Woods said.
The No. 1 criticism of the World Golf Ranking these days involves the high rating given Jumbo Ozaki of Japan. Ozaki, who seldom plays in tournaments outside his homeland other than the Masters, is ranked in the mid-teens. He has won more than 110 tournaments in his career.
Counters McCormick: ``Jumbo just won another tournament in Japan. If you reduce the value of the Japan Tour, then Shigeki Maruyama wouldn't have qualified for the Presidents Cup, in which he won five straight matches, or the Andersen Match Play Championship. I think we've got it pretty well down.''
1998 MASTERS QUALIFICATIONS
1. Masters Tournament champion
2. U.S. Open champion (five-year exemption)
3. British Open champion (five-year exemption)
4. PGA Championship winner (five-year exemption)
5-A. 1997 U.S. Amateur champion
5-B. 1997 U.S. Amateur runner-up
6. 1997 British Amateur champion
7. 1997 U.S. Amateur Public Links Champion
8. 1997 Mid-Amateur champion
9. Top 24 finishers, and ties, from 1997 Masters
10. Top 16 finshers, and ties, in 1997 U.S. Open
11. Top eight finishers, and ties, in 1997 PGA Championship
12. Winners of PGA Tour co-sponsored tournaments considered by the Masters Committee to be ``major'' events from the conclusion of the 1997 Masters to the initiation of the 1998 Masters
13. Top 30 money leaders from the 1997 PGA Tour
* The Masters Tournament committee will, at its discretion, invite international players who have not otherwise qualified.
QUALIFICATIONS ADDED FOR 1999 MASTERS
Winners of the Players Championship (three year exemption)
Top 50 from 1998 World Golf Ranking at the end of the 1998 season
Top 50 from World Golf Ranking as of March 8, 1999
QUALIFICATIONS TO BE CHANGED FOR 2000 MASTERS
Top 16, and ties, from the 1999 Masters (instead of top 24)
Top eight, and ties, from the 1999 U.S. Open (instead of top 16)
Top four, and ties, from the PGA Championship (instead of top 8)
Top 40 on the 1999 PGA Tour money list (instead of the top 30)
QUALIFICATIONS ADDED FOR 2000 MASTERS
Top three on the 2000 PGA Tour money list four weeks before the Masters
Top four from the 1999 British Open
QUALIFICATION DROPPED FOR 2000 MASTERS
Winners of PGA Tour co-sponsored tournaments considered by the Masters Committee to be ``major'' events.
Rankings achieve world-class status
