Two significant changes to the Official World Golf Ranking system which will affect tournament winners and the PGA Tour’s ‘elevated’ events have been announced.
Coming into effect on January 1, 2024, the first change relates to tournaments with less than 80 players, with the OWGR distributing a greater percentage of ranking points to the top finishers. Currently, a winner receives around 17-18% of the available points, with that figure set to increase to 21% in limited-field events.
In addition, for limited-field events that don’t feature a cut, the OWGR will no longer give ranking points to the bottom 15 per cent of the field.
This will have a significant impact on points awarded to the PGA Tour’s signature events in 2024, with all eight tournaments set to feature fields of between 70-80 players, and with five of them not featuring a cut.
WHAT TOURNAMENTS ARE EXEMPT
These changes, however, will not apply to end-of-season events, such as the FedExCup Play Offs or DP World Tour Championship, where eligibility is based on performances over an entire season of full-field events.
For matchplay events, players who lose their first-round match or do not win any matches in their pool will no longer receive points just for turning up. Although, with no matchplay events currently scheduled on the PGA Tour or DP World Tour in 2024, this change will no have effect in the immediate future.
The other change will be the introduction of a multi-win bonus to reward players who win more than once in a 52-week period. Two-time winners will enjoy a 60% points boost, while those who win three or more times will receive a 70% bonus. This change is over a rolling year-long period, so players who have won in 2023 will be able to claim the points boost if they win again in 2024 within 52 weeks of their previous win.
OWGR chairman Peter Dawson said: “Based on extensive analysis following the changes implemented in August 2022, we recognised these two opportunities to further enhance the OWGR and to accurately evaluate performances of the world’s participating players on all eligible Tours. Adjustments to the Ranking are made after careful consideration, and we are confident that these updates will better position the OWGR for the future.”