Wednesday

OWGR Needs to Serve Up Some Sexy Infographics












For the time being, the era of an ultra-dominant W#1 golfer is over.

This reality has opened the door for some bombastic opinionating thoughtful discussion on the system by which golf's top player is determined.

As Lee Westwood recaptured the top spot... then quickly grew weary of of the public polemic surrounding it... myriad opinion posts and countless Twitter debates have challenged the current point system or... extolled its virtues.
 
Some suggested there was simply too much nuance inherent in the game for any ranking system based strictly on data to be relevant ...which was kind of interesting until that post abrubtly ended with a facile quip on Luke Donald's recent fashion daring.

PGATour.com's Melanie Hauser wrote what I found to be the best breakdown of the current OWGR controversy, providing some historical perspective and finishing with a call to "sit back and enjoy the shuffle".  Which is definitely what I'll do. --->

I do have one suggestion for the OWGR that might go a long way towards making their rankings more engaging for a wider swath of the population... those like myself who just aren't that into raw data on who's #1: Have a look at the Rolex Rankings.

Women's golf certainly knows something about a shuffle at the top, but they don't seem to get bogged down by it.  And the Women's World Golf Ranking... the Rolex Rankings... do some extremely sexy things with their stats. They also provide a depth of information about the game that makes the battle for number one... and the trajectories of individual players... much, much, much more engaging than the bare-bones OWGR site.

The Rolex site is easy-on-the-eyes and interactive; fans can select favorite players and compare their progress infographically.  It's brilliant and I'm quite sure that if applied to the OWGR it would encourage... and enrich... engagement with men's professional golf. The tiresome discussion of who should, could, would be #1 is fine for hardened golf journalists/bloggers/scribes but the rest of us would surely appreciate a little infographic love.

6 comments:

  1. I saw the word sexy and rushed to this blog expecting....well- I don't know what I was expecting.

    Another of the many good reasons to follow to follow the women closely is the fact that in your gut, the rankings seem quite accurate. The best women players in the world are pretty much ranked where they should be.

    On the other hand, something about the men's rankings seems "skewed."

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  2. Speaking of women's golf, here's a nice story about a name you are familiar with!

    http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-digest-woman/blogs/golf-digest-woman/2011/04/madison-pressels-big-breakthro.html

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  3. .

    i'm not sure i could make any sense out of either one but i know it makes a big difference to players having endorsements

    in each and every contract a sponsor and player agree on, the terms typically include "incentives", and rankings are a very OBJECTIVE way, down to the hundreth-percentage point, as to where a player ranks, and therefore what the players "value" is and thus the compensation

    it's actually why that winning putt at augusta is worth so much beyond the purse, and the jacket

    which reminds me of an old auerbach story whereas a superstar asked to be paid "extra" for making the all-star team - auerbach replied " i'm paying you a superstar salary, so if you don't make the all-star team, i'm the one who is owed money back! "

    anyway be well

    frankD
    ftliquordale soFLA

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  4. I can see Red lighting up a cigar right now if I close my eyes. You mean there is a link between the rankings and money. As Claude Rains might have said about it in Casablanca: "I'm shocked, shocked to hear of this money and rankings link!!" Hope life is good under the sun Frank.

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  5. The OWGR site really is boring and kind of add to the perception of irrelevancy.

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  6. The OWGR is almost as controversial as Tiger Woods. With that being said, it is clearly a marketing ploy by the PGA to spark interest in the other Pro's while Tiger works his way back and Phil decides on a driver. The game of golf, by it's nature and heritage, has never recognized players as the best in the world on a week-to-week basis. The reason that names like Hogan, Nicklaus, Snead, Sarazen, and others come up as the "best" is not because of their weekly accomplishments. It's a body of work that can't be projected, it must be earned. The PGA would be better served holding less tournaments and promoting their young guns globally through exhibition rounds in large markets, connecting with the fans. I'm not sure what the solution is, but from a marketing standpoint the PGA can do better than a "whos hot" ranking system. Just a humble opinion.

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