During its meeting at The Open Championship at Turnberry the Governing Board of the Official World Golf Ranking approved a measure to introduce a “Maximum Divisor” into the World Ranking system. The Governing Board is comprised of representatives from the PGA TOUR, European Tour, the International Federation of PGA Tours and the host organisations of the men’s Major Championships – The R&A, the USGA, the PGA of America and Augusta National Golf Club.
The Maximum Divisor is designed to diminish current concerns that players might be penalized for playing a significant number of tournaments because their divisor is much higher as a result. At a time when Tours and sponsors alike are looking for players to enter more events, the Board agreed that the introduction of a “Maximum Divisor” over the two-year ranking period would alleviate this situation.
This divisor will be for a player’s last 52 events—the current average number of events played by the world’s top 200 players over the two-year ranking cycle. By using the “Last-52” events, a player who exceeds the maximum divisor will retain his current ranking points and only lose his earlier degraded points and retain a divisor of 52.
Rather than delay the application of the rule for a two-year period, as has been the case with other changes, the Board agreed to implement the new system in stages, beginning January 2010. This process is aimed to avoid any significant changes in a player’s ranking prior to any Official World Golf Ranking eligibility cut-off date for a Major Championship or World Golf Championship. The current “Minimum Divisor” of 40 events over the two-year ranking period will remain unchanged.
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