Reed moves clear as Woods surges in Bahamas

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Golf’s global growth has countless benefits. But it can also present challenges, especially if you’re trying to compare players competing on all corners of the globe. Three years ago, the Official World Golf Ranking began an analysis to answer one question: What is the best way to compare performances from players who compete around the world but may never face each other? That was an easier task when the OWGR was unveiled in 1986 and included just six tours. More than 20 tours are now included in the ranking. This growth was one reason for the changes to the world ranking that were announced Wednesday. This new system was created to provide a more accurate ranking, one that eliminates biases that existed because of arbitrary values that had been used in the ranking’s calculation. Here’s 5 Things to Know about the new world ranking: 1. WHAT’S NEW: This isn’t the first update to the Official World Golf Ranking. In its 35 years, the system has been adjusted at least 17 times, according to Peter Dawson, the chairman of the OWGR’s Governing Board. Under the new world ranking, a field will be evaluated based on the skill of all players in the field. The old system focused primarily on players ranked in the top 200 of the world, with little regard for the skill level of the remainder of the field. Each player will now have a Strokes Gained World Rating based on his scores in stroke-play events over the past two years. A player’s SG World Rating will determine how many Performance Points he contributes to the field. The sum of Performance Points determines the tournament’s Field Rating, which determines the number of Ranking Points that will be distributed. Ranking points will be awarded to all players who make the cut in a similar distribution to the prize purse, i.e. 18% to the winner, 11% to second place, etc. The old system did not guarantee points to all players who made the cut, but the new one does. Other features of the world ranking, such as its two-year weighted average, and minimum and maximum divisors for individual players remain intact. 2. OUT WITH THE OLD: The Field Rating replaces the Strength of Field measurement, which focused primarily on the number of top-200 players in a field. Also gone are the arbitrary values that are used in the current iteration of the world ranking, like the minimum values that tournaments on each tour can award. The new world ranking is agnostic to tour affiliations and concerned only with the skill of the players in the field. “We’re using all players coming into a field to determine the strength of an event rather than a smaller subset,” said Steve Otto, the R&A’s Technical Director and member of the OWGR Technical Committee. “This … will eliminate the requirement to have artificial constraints on the field rating with a more transparent and robust system.” For example, events on the PGA TOUR and European Tour can award no fewer than 24 points to the winner, regardless of the quality of the field. Those minimum values are not part of the new system. There are no longer flagship events – a designation given to the highest profile event on a specific tour — which also had a floor on the minimum number of points they could award. The only exceptions are the four majors, which will continue to award 100 points to their winners, and THE PLAYERS Championship, whose champion will earn 80 points. 3. GAINING ON THEM: So, what is a player’s Strokes Gained World Rating? If it sounds like something Mark Broadie would create, it should, as he was instrumental in its development. Described most simply, a player’s SG World Rating is based on his actual scores in stroke-play events, which are then adjusted for the strength of field. Things get a little more complex when you consider it’s a statistical modelling calculation known as fixed effects regression that enables the scores to be standardized. With either description, SG World Rating allows for comparison of players across a myriad of tours, enabling a 67 shot in the first round of THE PLAYERS to be compared to a 64 shot on the final day of a Challenge Tour event in Kazakhstan. Each player’s SG World Rating will fluctuate according to his two-year record, with more recent scores receiving more emphasis. SG World Ratings are an excellent evaluator of skill and would have strong predictive ability, said Billy Schroder, the PGA TOUR’s Vice President, International Relations and member of the OWGR Technical Committee, but the world ranking believes a ranking should reflect “established golfing norms,” including recognizing the majors as the pinnacle of the sport, putting a premium on winning and awarding points to all players who make the cut. 4. WHEN: The new system will not take effect for another year, beginning with the ranking for the week that ends August 14, 2022. From that date forward, tournaments will award points based on the new system (no retroactive changes will be made to past points awarded). Because the Official World Golf Ranking is calculated over a two-year window, the OWGR will not entirely reflect the new system until August 2024. 5. THE IMPACT: The OWGR predicts that the top 10 in the world ranking will likely remain the same under this new system and the top 50, which fluctuates weekly, would feature just 2-5 new players. The fact that these players compete regularly against each other is the reason for the minimal impact.

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ATLANTA, Ga. – Blake Kollin played football, basketball and lacrosse, but not golf, when Jordan Spieth won the 2015 Masters. That’s all changed now. “He made it look easy, so I just picked it up,� Kollin said before he started work Thursday. Kollin was one of two walking standard-bearers for the final pairing of Spieth and Justin Thomas in the first round of the TOUR Championship at East Lake. (Each shot 67 and was tied for sixth, three behind leader Kyle Stanley.) Skylar Thompson—she carried the sign on the front nine, Kollin on the back—also calls herself a Spieth fan. “He’s a really good role model,� she said. You may have heard there will be two more tournaments on the PGA TOUR next season, a total of 49 in the United States and eight other countries, and record prize money (more than $363 million). You’d have to say the view from 30,000 feet is a pretty good one. But what about the view from the ground? That’s not bad, either, to judge by the scene around Spieth-Thomas, the FedExCup Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, on Thursday. High school seniors Kollin and Thompson wore khaki pants and forest-green polo shirts in temperatures that reached 91 degrees. They popped red numbers into and out of their sign as Spieth birdied three straight on the front nine and Thomas made four birdies and two bogeys on the back. After the 2015 Masters, Kollin gave up lacrosse, since its season coincided with golf. Then he dropped football and basketball, too. Now he plays No. 1 for the Cambridge High team in Milton, Georgia, with a career-low of 67. Yeah, he got good fast. Thompson, also a senior, matriculates at an online charter school and will attend South Carolina on a golf scholarship starting in the fall of 2018. Her career-low is 64, but her tournament-low is 69. She has been working as a standard-bearer at this tournament since she was 12, so this week marks the end of an era. “The sign was bigger than she was,� said Pete Sutter, longtime chairman of the standard-bearers at this tournament. “I was like, really? She said, ‘I can do it!’� “The sign wasn’t bigger than I was!� Thompson said with a laugh. “Oh, okay,� Sutter said. “It wasn’t bigger than she was.� Fans waited in the stands and media and officials ringed the first tee box. Spieth shook hands with Kollin and Thompson. “Hi, I’m Jordan,� he said. Kollin marveled at his proximity to a high-profile athlete, even as he eyed another. “That’s one of the Atlanta Hawks,� he said in a whisper. “That’s Kent Bazemore.� Bazemore, 28, was hard to miss as he followed the last twosome. A 6’5’’ shooting guard for the Hawks, he stopped and posed for selfies with fans. Like everyone else, he marveled at the shot-making of Spieth-Thomas, who at times played a game of can-you-top-this. Spieth, hitting first, knocked his approach shots to 6 ½ and 3 ½ feet at the seventh and eighth holes, respectively. Thomas responded, hitting his to 5 ½ and 4 feet. Four birdies. “I’ve had it bad for four years,� Bazemore said of the golf bug, which has seen him join nearby Hawks Ridge Golf Club and play golf with fellow NBA player Stephan Curry. (They are both sponsored by Under Armour, as is Spieth.) Bazemore had a feeling Curry would do well at the Web.com Tour’s Ellie Mae Classic in August. (Curry shot 74-74 to miss the cut, but impressed.) “I played with him the week before that, at Newport National in Rhode Island,� Bazemore said. “He’d just come back from Asia, and he shot 73 with rental clubs.� Ellie Spieth, not Ellie Mae, was the one in the sweet Under Armour shoes following her big brother Thursday. She was there along with her father, Shawn, and mother, Chris. Thomas’ parents, Mike and Jani, were also following along. The two families have been tight ever since Spieth and Thomas played in the Evian Junior Masters in France a decade ago. “He calls me Mamma,� Chris Spieth said of Justin Thomas. She laughed. You get the feeling Chris’ side of the family was the source of 6’ 6’’ Steven Spieth’s height. The younger brother of Jordan, Steven Spieth played basketball for Brown and the Dallas Mavericks summer league team, and now plays professionally overseas. While Jordan was working his way through a few wayward drives on the front nine, Chris and Shawn were watching and wondering if there is a way to live stream a basketball tournament in Argentina starting Friday. Perhaps they’ll use their phones. That was partly how Miles Young and Pete Shelton followed the first-round action. Dustin Johnson (68) nearly plunked Shelton with a wide-right drive at the fifth hole, but Shelton turned lemons into lemonade, capturing the action on his smart phone. “I like that you can take pictures,� said Young, whose 9-year-old son, Cole, was also tagging along. “I like that it’s low-key. You can see the players really close, and kids get in free. Cole likes the fist-bumps. He’s gotten autographs, golf balls, a flag signed by Brandt Snedeker. “We go out to the course at home, and half the time we’re fishing balls out of the lake, or riding the cart together, but this is the key to get him really excited. When you can get this close, and get a fist-bump from Jordan Spieth, it makes all the difference.� Shelton shook his head. “He’s a better dad than me; he took his son out of school.� (Shelton has three kids, among them a 13-year-old son who wanted to be at East Lake.) “Only for a few hours,� Young replied with a sheepish smile. Shelton would peel off before the last twosome finished the front nine, leaving East Lake to get to his 9-year-old daughter’s soccer practice in time. He’s the coach. Young and his son would follow suit; Cole’s soccer practice was scheduled to start an hour later. They’ll be back, as will Bazemore, the Spieths, and standard-bearers Kollin and Thompson. They’ll all be back. Three rounds remain, and Spieth and Thomas are only 24. There’s a lot of golf to be played.

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