THE PLAYERS Championship 2024: OWGR Points Allocated For the Entire Field Explored
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February 3, 2024; Pebble Beach, California, USA; Scottie Scheffler hits his tee shot on the third hole during the third round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament at Pebble Beach Golf Links. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
The fifth major of the PGA Tour will be starting in just a few hours. The 144 players will be teeing it up at the TPC Sawgrass – Stadium Course aka the Star Wars golf course. The field has been led by top players like world number one Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Viktor Hovland, Max Homa, and many more.
With the greats of golf at the Stadium Course, it has been said to be the strongest field event on the PGA Tour; though the fans might not fully agree. The PLAYERS Championships display the highest prize purse for any major or nonmajor event. And with high stakes up for grabs, there are better Official World Ranking points too, given away with an extra benefit to the PGA Tour winners.
What’s at stake at THE PLAYERS Championship?
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THE PLAYERS Championship will have a $4.5 million prize purse for its winner from the $25 million pool. The 144 field will enjoy another benefit of playing in the championship. According to Nosferatu’s post on X (formerly known as Twitter), this year, the OWGR points allotted to THE PLAYERS Championship are 80. Moreover, the PGA Tour and the OWGR will award four more points to the winner if the pro has won multiple times on the PGA Tour in the past few years.
In total, the players will get 84 points. This kind of point allotment has never been done on the PGA Tour. The new system also explains why THE PLAYERS Championship has been known as the ‘fifth major’. The OWGR point difference between a major win and the championship will only be 20 points for the PGA Tour members.
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The event, though not a signature event on the PGA Tour, has the highest field rating of 456.41811. Comparatively, the event will be given higher points than the International Series in Macau sanctioned by the Asian Tour. The event at Macau Golf & Country Club has 14.69628 points for the winner and many from LIV Golf, like Sergio Garcia, Patrick Reed, and Ian Poulter, are participating in a bid to rank higher on the OWGR.
The #OWGR field for #ThePlayers is out. As usual, the winner will get 80 world ranking points. Or will he…?
If that winner happens to be a multiple winner over the past year, he should then get 84 points! Something that never happened before. And 104p for a major win…?🤔
— Nosferatu (@VC606) March 9, 2024
The PIF-backed league has still not acquired acceptance from the Official World Golf Ranking System, as its format of 54- holes starkly differs from all the other sanctioned leagues of the OWGR. Moreover, Greg Norman has detailed that LIV Golf will be pursuing inclusion in OWGR as they have shown “little willingness to productively work with” them. With LIV Golf moving away from the world ranking system, their brethren from the PGA Tour have come in to show the inconsistencies of OWGR.
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Patrick Cantley and Matt Fitzpatrick ask for a change in OWGR
It seems that the players who can benefit from the OWGR system are also pointing to a need for a change in the golf rankings. After Greg Norman disassociated his league from OWGR, Patrick Cantlay, PAC player director, opined his stance on the world rankings. He said, “I don’t know if broken is the right word, but I think that there’s been so much uncertainty and change in the last couple years that it’s inevitable that things need to be updated or things need to be changed.”
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On the other hand, the former U.S. Open winner, Matt Fitzpatrick, didn’t think that “the World Rankings are a true representation of the golf game at the minute” and believed that “nowadays the ranking side of it is a little bit skewed.” As the PGA Tour pros also vocalize their issues with the OWGR, will it change for a better future of golf?
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Written by:
Edited by:
Tushhita Barua
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