Women's World Golf Rankings

The idea of introducing a set of women's rankings similar to the Official World Golf Rankings was developed at the May 2004 World Congress of Women's Golf, and was first planned for 2005,^[1] but then put back to 2006.

Calculation of the rankings

The rankings are based on performances on the five major tours and the Futures Tour, the official developmental tour of the LPGA, over a two-year period. Amateur players are eligible. The system for calculating the rankings is similar to that for the men's Official World Golf Rankings. Players receive points for each good finish on the relevant tours, with the number of points available in each event depending on the strength of the field, as determined by the competitors' existing rankings (when the rankings were introduced rankings were calculated for earlier periods; indeed the first ever set showed notional changes since the previous week). The only exceptions are the four LPGA majors and Futures Tour events, which have a fixed-point allocation. Rankings are tapered so the recent results are more important.

Original formula

When the rankings were first introduced in February 2006, a player's ranking as calculated in the above description was divided by the number of events played, with a minimum required events of 15 over the previous two years. In addition, players were required to play in a minimum of 15 eligible events over the previous two-year period to be included in the rankings.

Formula revisions

On 2 August 2006 the Rolex Rankings Board and Technical Committee announced following its bi-annual meeting two changes to the ranking formula.^[2]

1. The elimination of the minimum event requirement. Players would no longer be required to participate in fifteen qualifying events to be included in the rankings and could be included after playing in as few as one qualifying event. This change would also have the effect of permitting amateurs who had played well in one event to be ranked (e.g., U.S. Women's Open, or Michelle Wie from age 13).
2. The introduction of a minimum divisor. Where previously a player's point total was divided by the number of events she played over the previous 104 weeks, now the player's point total would be divided by the greater of (i) the number of events played or (ii) 35. Thus, players with 35 or more events over the previous 104 weeks would continue to use the actual number of events played as the divisor, but players with fewer than 35 events would use 35 as the divisor.

Many commentators saw the latter change as directed at Michelle Wie, who at the time was ranked second in the world despite having competed in only 16 women's professional events in the two-year period. However, the chairman of the Rolex Rankings Technical Committee defended the change as one designed to make the women's rankings more comparable to the Official World Golf Rankings for men, which use a minimum divisor of 40 events.

On 16 April 2007, another modification in the formula was introduced. Instead of points being awarded on an accumulated 104-week rolling period, with the points awarded in the most recent 13-week period carrying a stronger value, points began to be reduced in 91 equal decrements following week 13 for the remaining 91 weeks of the two-year Rolex Ranking period rather than the seven equal 13 week decrements previously used.^[3] This modification did not have an immediate impact on the rankings.

Criticisms

When they were introduced the rankings attracted considerable criticism on two grounds.^[4] First, it was widely felt that members of the LPGA of Japan Tour were ranked too high, since few of them had competed successfully outside Japan. Second, the minimum of 15 events needed to qualify for a ranking was widely seen as having been selected purely to enable Michelle Wie to be highly ranked because she had played exactly that number in the preceding two years, while every other highly ranked player had played many more events. If the women's rankings used the same system used for the men's rankings –- that is a minimum number of events of one but a minimum denominator of 40 to calculate the average points per tournament – Wie would have been just outside the top 10. But under the women's ranking system where only players who had played a minimum number of events were included, if the minimum number of events had been set higher than fifteen, Wie would not have been ranked at all.

The August 2006 revised formula addresses the second criticism. The technical committee that administers the rankings urged patience with regard to the first criticism, since the continuing "strength of the field" weighting of tournaments may correct the issue without any technical changes being made.

Significance of the rankings

The rankings are used by each of the sponsoring tours to determine eligibility criteria for certain events. For example, 40 of the 144 places in the Women's British Open are currently awarded on the basis of the rankings—10 to LET members and 30 to LPGA members.^[5] Four of the 12 places in the European Solheim Cup team are allocated on the basis of the rankings.^[6]

Starting in 2013, the rankings at the end of each LPGA Tour season in odd-numbered years will determine the eight countries that will compete in the following year's International Crown, a new LPGA-sponsored team event scheduled in even-numbered years and first held in 2014. More specifically, the countries whose top four players have the highest cumulative rankings are invited to compete.^[7] The individual participants from each qualified country are determined by the rankings immediately prior to the ANA Inspiration (known before 2015 as the Kraft Nabisco Championship) in the year of the event.^[8]

Current top ten

Rank	Change	Player	Country	Points
1		Inbee Park	South Korea	11.45
2		Stacy Lewis	United States	10.28
3		Lydia Ko	New Zealand	10.23
4		Suzann Pettersen	Norway	7.49
5		Shanshan Feng	China	6.90
6		Michelle Wie	United States	6.65
7		So Yeon Ryu	South Korea	6.44
8		Karrie Webb	Australia	6.01
9		Kim Hyo-joo	South Korea	5.94
10		Lexi Thompson	United States	5.71

Change column indicates change in rank from previous week.
Notes

• On 12 January 2009, Annika Sörenstam, who was ranked 3rd the previous week despite having announced her retirement effective at the end of the 2008 season, was removed from the rankings. No official explanation was given for her removal. Sörenstam later posted in her personal blog that she asked to be removed.^[9]
• On 10 May 2010, one week after announcing that she was retiring from golf, Lorena Ochoa also voluntarily removed herself from the rankings. Her last position in the rankings was number 2 for the week of 3 May 2010.^[10]

World number ones

No.	Player	Country	Start date	End date	Weeks	Total weeks
1	Sörenstam, AnnikaAnnika Sörenstam	Sweden	02006-02-21-000021 February 2006	02007-04-22-000022 April 2007	060 !60	060 !60
2	Ochoa, LorenaLorena Ochoa	Mexico	02007-04-23-000023 April 2007	02010-05-02-00002 May 2010	158 !158	158 !158
3	Shin, JiyaiJiyai Shin	South Korea	02010-05-03-00003 May 2010	02010-06-20-000020 June 2010	007 !7	-
4	Miyazato, AiAi Miyazato	Japan	02010-06-21-000021 June 2010	02010-06-27-000027 June 2010	001 !1	-
5	Kerr, CristieCristie Kerr	United States	02010-06-28-000028 June 2010	02010-07-18-000018 July 2010	003 !3	-
	Miyazato, AiAi Miyazato	Japan	02010-07-19-000019 July 2010	02010-07-25-000025 July 2010	001 !1	-
	Shin, JiyaiJiyai Shin	South Korea	02010-07-26-000026 July 2010	02010-08-15-000015 August 2010	003 !3	-
	Kerr, CristieCristie Kerr	United States	02010-08-16-000016 August 2010	02010-08-22-000022 August 2010	001 !1	-
	Miyazato, AiAi Miyazato	Japan	02010-08-23-000023 August 2010	02010-10-24-000024 October 2010	010 !10	012 !12
	Kerr, CristieCristie Kerr	United States	02010-10-25-000025 October 2010	02010-10-31-000031 October 2010	001 !1	005 !5
	Shin, JiyaiJiyai Shin	South Korea	02010-11-01-00001 November 2010	02011-02-13-000013 February 2011	015 !15	025 !25
6	Tseng, YaniYani Tseng	Taiwan	02011-02-14-000014 February 2011	02013-03-17-000017 March 2013	109 !109	109 !109
7	Lewis, StacyStacy Lewis	United States	02013-03-18-000018 March 2013	02013-04-14-000014 April 2013	004 !4	-
8	Park, InbeeInbee Park	South Korea	02013-04-15-000015 April 2013	02014-06-01-00001 June 2014	059 !59	059 !59
	Lewis, StacyStacy Lewis	United States	02014-06-02-00002 June 2014	02014-10-26-000026 October 2014	021 !21	025 !25
	Park, InbeeInbee Park	South Korea	02014-10-27-000027 October 2014	Current	007 !7	066 !66

Year end No. 1

Year	Player	Country
2006	Annika Sörenstam	Sweden
2007	Lorena Ochoa	Mexico
2008	Lorena Ochoa	Mexico
2009	Lorena Ochoa	Mexico
2010	Jiyai Shin	South Korea
2011	Yani Tseng	Taiwan
2012	Yani Tseng	Taiwan
2013	Inbee Park	South Korea

Green shading indicates the player was No. 1 throughout the year.

Historical rankings

Annika Sörenstam of Sweden topped the first set of rankings, which was released on Tuesday 21 February 2006. Paula Creamer (United States); Michelle Wie (United States); Yuri Fudoh (Japan); and Cristie Kerr (United States) took the other places in the top 5. The top one hundred players in the initial rankings came from the following countries:

• 25: South Korea
• 23: Japan
• 21: United States
• 6: Australia, Sweden
• 5: United Kingdom (England 3; Scotland 2)
• 4: Taiwan
• 2: France
• 1: Canada, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Philippines

Initial Top Ten 21 February 2006 Rank Player Country Points 1 Annika Sörenstam  Sweden 18.47 2 Paula Creamer  United States 9.65 3 Michelle Wie  United States 9.24 4 Yuri Fudoh  Japan 7.37 5 Cristie Kerr  United States 6.94 6 Ai Miyazato  Japan 6.58 7 Lorena Ochoa  Mexico 6.10 8 Jeong Jang  South Korea 4.91 9 Hee-Won Han  South Korea 4.49 10 Juli Inkster  United States 4.11

Initial top ten after 2 August 2006 formula change 7 August 2006 Rank Player Country Points 1 Annika Sörenstam  Sweden 17.41 2 Lorena Ochoa  Mexico 9.87 3 Karrie Webb  Australia 9.39 4 Paula Creamer  United States 8.13 5 Cristie Kerr  United States 8.04 6 Juli Inkster  United States 7.75 7 Michelle Wie  United States 6.83 8 Jeong Jang  South Korea 6.09 9 Yuri Fudoh  Japan 5.98 10 Ai Miyazato  Japan 5.79

See also

• Official World Golf Ranking – for male professional golfers
• World Amateur Golf Ranking – for male and female amateur golfers

References

External links

• Official site with full list of all ranked players
• Official site with historical rankings of all players

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