The FGR Rankings Update

Sadly, this was considered
sexy in 1984. A woman with a
tail who smelled like halibut. 

This is the part where I get to do my Eugene Levy from Splash impersonation and declare, "I WAS RIGHT . . . BEHOLD THE MERMAID" or in this case, "BEHOLD THE BEST GOLFER IN THE WORLD!" You see, the original inspiration for the creation of the FGR Rankings was that Rory McIlroy was by far the best player in the world but that fact was not being reflected by the "Official" World Golf Rankings which kept Luke Donald nipping at his heels (and at one point even passing him) by giving him credit for winning random tournaments that no one cares about like the Transitions Championship.* (History of the FGR Rankings).

With his second dominating win in the last seven majors, McIlroy has ended the argument and the WGR seems to have finally figured-out what the FGR knew all along as it has him with what I guess is a comfortable 2.99 point lead.** What the WGR is still clueless on, however, is how to rank the rest of the top 20. I mean how can Keegan Bradley be fourteen spots lower than Lee Westwood when Bradley has a major and a WGC title during a span when the only thing Westwood has won is something called the Nordea Masters in Sweden?*** This isn't so much a knock against Westwood (who is a poor man's Luke Donald when it comes to racking-up top ten finishes) but at some point you have to elevate a guy like Bradley who is now proven winner of big time events which has to be the most important criteria right? I believe it was Socrates who once said, "if you ain't first, you're last."

While we're on the subjects
of Tiger and Sweden . . . 

And that brings us to the case of one Tiger Woods who won three PGA events this year and moved up to second on the WGR. The problem Tiger has under the FGR rankings is that he hasn't won a major or a WGC event since the 2009 Bridgestone which is too old to factor into the equation. Winning the Palmer, the Memorial and the AT&T are all wonderful accomplishments as all of those events had pretty strong fields but the FGR Rankings are primarily concerned with one thing - can you win when all of the A-list guys are in the field? For Tiger, the answer to that question since August of 2009 has been "no" so he currently sits at no. 12.

We've had another minor tweak to the FGR Rankings formula that we'll call the "Jason Day Rule." To summarize, the "Jason Day Rule" basically says that if you take a colossal dump on my fantasy golf season by showing so much prowess last year that I pick you ahead of Rory McIlroy this year, then you don't qualify for the rankings.**** With that rule in effect, here is the current breakdown of the FGR v. the WGR:

         FGR Rankings            World Golf Rankings

1	McIlroy	146	McIlroy	12.68
2	Donald	105	Woods	9.69
3	Bradley, K.	89	Donald	9.25
4	Scott, A.	85	Westwood	7.23
5	Westwood	70	Rose	6.51
6	Schwartzel	64	Scott, A.	6.30
7	Watson, B.	62	Watson, B.	6.17
8	Rose	62	Simpson, W.	6.17
9	Kuchar	61	Dufner	6.00
10	Els	60	Snedeker	6.00
11	Hanson, P.	59	Oosti	5.69
12	Woods	49	Stricker	5.65
13	Simpson, W.	46	Johnson, D.	5.47
14	McDowell	46	Bradley, K.	5.42
15	Toms	46	Kuchar	5.32
16	Dufner	43	Mickelson	5.11
17	Johnson, D.	39	Johnson, Z.	5.08
18	Mickelson	39	McDowell	4.89
19	Oosti	39	Garcia	4.82
20	Kaymer	38	Mahan	4.79

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Endnotes

* What in the hell is the Transitions Championship the championship of anyway? Tampa? Does the winner get free lap dances for life? (If so, that would be pretty sweet because you wouldn't have to keep track of the songs. That can be an expensive learning experience . . . or so I hear).

** We don't do decimals at the FGR because decimals reminds us of the movement to de-Americanize the way we drink soda in this country by switching us to the metric system. You can keep your liters Europe. We're doing just fine getting fatter by the ounce.

You're kind of freaking me out.
Can we bring Elin back?

*** The promotional slogan at this year's Nordea Masters was "Join us for four days of world class golf and we'll show you that we're not all as sordid as the characters in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." (On the back of the ticket it did, however, say "WARNING: DON'T TURN YOUR BACK ON ANYONE").

**** The actual rule is that you have to finish in the top ten in one of the nine tournaments used in the rankings within the past twelve months to be eligible. (That shouldn't have been too difficult . . . right Jason?!?). This is the other half of the "Darren Clarke Rule" which states that you have to have at least two top tens in the last twenty-four months which of course led to the creation of the "Webb Simpson Corollary" which awards points for a top five finish in the final FedEx Cup and Race to Dubai rankings. When you put the three rules together, the effect is to remove any doubt you may have that I spent three years in law school learning how to create rules to radically change a system (that I created in the first place) so as to achieve a predetermined end result, a process also know as "lawmaking."