Jon Rahm didn’t mince words when addressing the new Official World Golf Ranking system as this week’s limited-field season finale on the DP World Tour is projected to offer nearly half as many points as the PGA Tour’s corresponding event.
“I’m going to be as blunt as I can,” the 28-year-old Spaniard said Wednesday in Dubai. “I think the OWGR right now is laughable. Laughable. Laughable.
“The fact that the (PGA Tour’s RSM Classic) doesn’t have any of the top 25 in the world and has more points than this event where we have seven of the top 25 is laughable.”
Per the OWGR website, the winner of the RSM Classic this weekend in Saint Simons Island, Ga., is projected to receive 38.38110 points. By comparison, the victor of the DP World Tour Championship — which features world No. 1 Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland and No. 5 Rahm — will earn 21.82291.
“I understand what they are trying to do with the depth of field but having the best players in the world automatically makes the tournament better. I don’t care what their system says. I think they have made a mistake. I think some aspects of it might be beneficial, but I think they have devalued the value of the better players.
“Take the Tour Championship as an example: The 30 best players of the year should not be punished because it’s a smaller field. Depth of field doesn’t mean better tournament. I could go on and on. I think they have missed the mark on that stance quite a bit.”
Rahm’s assessment differs from that of McIlroy.
“Yeah, so when you look at two different fields, you’ve got a 50-man field (in Dubai) versus a 144-man field (in Georgia),” McIlroy said on Tuesday. “So, just in terms of how the strengths of field is calculated, they have 90 more players to contribute to their strength of field. So the reason that this has got 21 points and the RSM has got 39 is the person that wins the RSM has to beat 139 other guys. You only have to beat 49 other guys here. It’s a much fairer system.”
–Field Level Media