The Masters 2015 **MOD warning in OP**

Wombatman

slave1

Will we see the rarest of cats this year?

diomed

2014 - 2nd Jordan Spieth, Jonas Blixt
2013 - 6th Thorbjorn Olesen
2011 - 2nd Jason Day
2009 - 6th John Merrick
2005 - 3rd Luke Donald, 5th Mark Hensby
2004 - 6th Paul Casey
2003 - 2nd (playoff) Len Mattiace (played once before in 1988 as amateur)
2002 - 9th Adam Scott
2001 - 4th Toshimitsu Izawa
1999 - 6th Carlos Franco
1997 - 3rd Tommy Tolles
1994 - 8th Ernie Els
1993 - 3rd Tom Lehman
1990 - 3rd John Huston

others
1981 - 4th Greg Norman
1966 - 8th Ray Floyd

2015 professional 1st time starters are:
Erik Compton; James Hahn; Brian Harman; Morgan Hoffman; Brooks Koepka (injured?);
Shane Lowry; Seung-Yul Noh; Robert Streb; Brendon Todd; Cameron Tringale; Danny Willett.

abff

Did anyone watch the European Tour coverage on Sky yesterday? They spend the first ten minutes or so (at least it felt like ten minutes) going on and on about what everyone needed to do this weekend in order to break into the top 50 and qualify for the Masters. They then went on to say that qualifying for the Masters was the only thing on anyone's mind this weekend.

What a load of claptrap and such an obvious attempt to talk up their Masters coverage. I'm assuming they did the same thing today, but I couldn't bring myself to watch it.

Speak Now

abff wrote: »

Did anyone watch the European Tour coverage on Sky yesterday? They spend the first ten minutes or so (at least it felt like ten minutes) going on and on about what everyone needed to do this weekend in order to break into the top 50 and qualify for the Masters. They then went on to say that qualifying for the Masters was the only thing on anyone's mind this weekend.

What a load of claptrap and such an obvious attempt to talk up their Masters coverage. I'm assuming they did the same thing today, but I couldn't bring myself to watch it.

Yeah completely ridiculous stuff, I think there's only about 6 players playing in Agadir that it applies to.

slave1

In fairness it is what a lot of folk are interested in, same as Open qualification if the week or two leading up to it, you'll always see claret jug in leaderboards indicating who's already qualified and where folk need to finish for late qualification...

abff

slave1 wrote: »

In fairness it is what a lot of folk are interested in, same as Open qualification if the week or two leading up to it, you'll always see claret jug in leaderboards indicating who's already qualified and where folk need to finish for late qualification...

I agree up to a point. However, the only events where they show the claret jug in leaderboards are those events that are in the Open Qualifying Series, where there are three places or thereabouts available in the Open for those finishing in the top ten who have not already qualified.

Before yesterday's coverage, they showed everyone who was playing in Morocco or Texas this weekend who could make potentially it into the top 50 and what they would need to do to get there. I found this fairly interesting, but it was the extent to which they went on and on about it that annoyed me.

And the fact is that getting the result specified does not necessarily guarantee top 50 as it will also depend on what others do this weekend. Anyway, it will be an interesting side story on Sunday afternoon if there are players in contention who are close to getting into the top 50.

Incidentally, when discussing the Masters, they pointed out that Paul Casey is currently ranked 49th and stated that Paul had decided that his best chance of staying in the top 50 was to sit out this weekend.

I assume this is speculation on their part and it shows how little they understand how the rankings work. Paul has played more than 52 events in the past two years and he scored zero world ranking points in the event that would drop out of the reckoning if he were to play this weekend. Therefore, he could not lose world ranking points by playing this weekend and any points he did pick up would improve his chances of staying in the top 50.

Anyway, rant over. But it annoys me to pay good money to Sky in order to hear people getting paid to spout rubbish and it makes me wonder to what extent I can take anything they say as being accurate.

Rikand

abff wrote: »

Anyway, rant over. But it annoys me to pay good money to Sky in order to hear people getting paid to spout rubbish and it makes me wonder to what extent I can take anything they say as being accurate.

My dad watches the golf and pretty much all sports coverage from Sky without the sound. He can't stand the nonsense that is spouted from a great number of the commentators

slave1

@abff, fair enough, being honest I've struggled to watch the Euro tour this year after the desert affairs, these 'shares' are just not of the same quality or depth of field as the US offers, Euro tour should just shut down until late April IMHO and go for quality over quantity...

coylemj

abff wrote: »

I assume this is speculation on their part and it shows how little they understand how the rankings work. Paul has played more than 52 events in the past two years and he scored zero world ranking points in the event that would drop out of the reckoning if he were to play this weekend. Therefore, he could not lose world ranking points by playing this weekend and any points he did pick up would improve his chances of staying in the top 50.

Won't that event drop out of his points table whether he plays this w/e or not? Isn't the OWGR based on a rolling 104 weeks window so the event will drop out one way or the other?

abff

coylemj wrote: »

Won't that event drop out of his points table whether he plays this w/e or not? Isn't the OWGR based on a rolling 104 weeks window so the event will drop out one way or the other?

Not necessarily. It's based on a rolling 104 week average, subject to a maximum of 52 tournaments. Therefore, if a player has played in more than 52 tournaments over the last two years, only the most recent 52 will count.

In Casey's case, his 52nd most recent tournament was the Ballantine's Tournament, played in week 17 of 2013. This has a weighting of 5/92 in the current week and this weighting will drop to 4/92 next week. However, if he had played this week, it would be excluded from his total points calculation.

Because he scored zero points in the Ballantine's, it doesn't make any difference to his overall points total whether it is included with a weighting of 4/92 or is excluded altogether. And the number of tournaments over which his average points value is calculated would remain at 52, whether or not he plays this week. Therefore, he could not have lost world ranking points by playing this week, but might have gained some.

The position would be different if he had earned any ranking points in the Ballantine's. Let's say for argument's sake that he had won 9.20 world ranking points in that tournament (just to make the calculations easy). The weighted value of those points in the current week would be 9.20 x 5/92 = 0.50 points and the weighted value next week would be 9.20 x 4/92 = 0.40 points. If he had played this week, he would have lost those 0.40 points and if he failed to pick up any points this week, his overall average points would therefore be 0.40/52 = .0077 points worse than if he hadn't played.

While it's unlikely that a margin of 0.0077 points would make the difference between finishing in the top 50 and finishing just outside, it should be noted that the differences in rankings can be quite small. For example, in this week's rankings there is only 0.0027 of a point between Gary Woodland in 46th and Danny Willett in 47th and only 0.0007 between Charl Schwartzel in 34th and Anirban Lahiri in 35th.

Where the difference between playing and not playing can be more significant is when a player has played fewer than 52 tournaments within the last two years, in which case he would be increasing the divisor by 1 by playing in the current week. In fact, if either Danny Willett in 47th or Luke Donald in 48th had played this week and had failed to pick up any points, they would have fallen behind Paul Casey in the rankings.

Apologies for the long winded reply, but you did ask.

Dr_Colossus

Excellent post and very interesting analysis, thanks. They should have you on Sky Sports giving a breakdown of how the world ranking points work as it's something I never looked into and therefore understood.

coylemj

abff wrote: »

Apologies for the long winded reply, but you did ask.

Thanks for the response, I have no problem with detail as I'm a numbers man though not as good as you when it comes to hypothetical OWGR scenarios!

I knew the maximum divisor was 52, I wasn't aware that if a player had played more than 52 events in the past 104 weeks that only the most recent 52 events counted. I thought the maximum divisor was there solely so as not to penalise dedicated and hard working players who showed up for every tournament and might clock up more than 52 events.

For the benefit of others...

There is a minimum divisor of 40 tournaments over the two year ranking period and a maximum divisor of a player’s last 52 events.

http://www.owgr.com/about

Kermar

FixdePitchmark wrote: »

I wouldn't like to see Bubba win it - don't like him to start.

But -
I think The following would be my call

Mcilroy
Speith
Day

The course could suit Reed - but Reed looked weak towards end of Honda.

Dustin to me is the unpredictable - he has a shocking record in majors. Not to mention no record here at all.

So also ruling him out.

So I'm going for 3 above - hoping Bubba does not play like last year - because he looked miles ahead of everyone there. The course looks tight on tv - but clearly isn't.

People go on about how strong golf is ( I have too) - but when you go below the top 5/6 , there are not many you fancy at all.
Kaymer - Garcia are great golfers - but....

It is a strange major in a way.

Don't think that could be less true about Dustin Johnson having a bad record in majors

FixdePitchmark

Any facts to back it up.

The only person with as bad a record near the top 10 of OWGR is Jordan Spieth who is 21 (and he has a 2nd).

Dustin is 30 years of age has one Top 3 in 2011.

You'd struggle to find any leading golfer at that age with as bad a record.


So maybe this is his year - but , he would want to get a move on.

Rikand

in 23 major championships, dustin johnson has 7 top 10's and only missed the cut 4 times.

He's doing alright!

PARlance

Some golfers don't peak well into their 30's Fix... you should know that

Considering DJ was a "bit wild" off the course in his 20's, I think he has a decent record so far. With his head screwed on, he'll get his major imo and many more over the next decade.

The Masters wouldn't be his ideal chance imo but I'm still saying he'll get his major this year, and possibly two as a real outside bet.

I would worry slightly for McIlroy, he has put a huge amount of pressure on himself to win this.

If Adam Scott picks the long stick, then he'll be my bet.

yettie1701

Not a clue how to work out world ranking points even after it was in black and white by a previous poster. I'm obviously just a bit thicker than I thought I was but shur ignorance is bliss. I agree that McIlroy has put a lot of pressure on himself to win this one. He will definitely win it at some point imo and quiet possibly this time. When he is on there is no equal for him at the moment he just has too much for the rest of the field. I think Jimmy Walker is showing good form and might have a chance.

jjll

Casey not playing this week as he will move to 48th for some reason by not playing

abff

jjll wrote: »

Casey not playing this week as he will move to 48th for some reason by not playing

I would be grateful if you could tell me where you saw or heard that. If you scroll up to post #162 above, you will see that I went into some detail on how the rankings work and why Casey would have been enhancing rather than jeopardising his prospects of staying in the top 50 by playing this week.

I also made the point that Luke Donald would fall behind Casey in the rankings if he played this week and didn't pick up any ranking points. In making this assertion, I didn't check to see what would happen to Donald's ranking if he didn't play. Points earned in ranking events retain their full value for 12 weeks and then fall by 1/92nd in equal weekly instalments until they fall out of the reckoning by either being more than 103 weeks old or because the player has played in 52 ranking events since the event in question.

At present, Donald has 252.12 points that are subject to decay and will therefore lose 2.74 ranking points this week. Casey currently has only 153.70 points subject to decay and therefore loses only 1.67 points. The difference between these two figures, combined with the fact that Donald has a slightly lower divisor than Casey, will result in Casey moving from just over .01 average points behind Donald to just over .01 average points ahead of him.

It has nothing to do with the fact that Casey is not playing this week. It is purely a function of how the rankings work.

Apologies if this comes across as a rant. It's not aimed at you jjll. It's just that I have spent a lot of time and effort understanding how the rankings work and having sports journalists (I presume it was something you either read somewhere or heard on TV) spread misinformation about why players are doing certain things just annoys me. Even worse if it is Casey himself who made an ill judged decision based on incorrect information. If that is the case, I hope it doesn't cause him to lose his place in the Masters and maybe I should offer my services to him as a consultant.

jjll

Robert lee yesterday when hecwas explaining what all players must do to get to augusta and hecsaid paul casey not playing this week as he will move upto 48th in world monday

abff

jjll wrote: »

Robert lee yesterday when hecwas explaining what all players must do to get to augusta and hecsaid paul casey not playing this week as he will move upto 48th in world monday

Thanks for getting back to me. So he didn't specifically say that Paul was moving up to 48th because he wasn't playing - more the other way round? That makes more sense, but it's still a high risk strategy by Paul. I haven't examined the results to see if it backfired on him. (Can't be bothered as I'm just back from the Aviva).

PARlance

abff wrote: »

Thanks for getting back to me. So he didn't specifically say that Paul was moving up to 48th because he wasn't playing - more the other way round? That makes more sense, but it's still a high risk strategy by Paul. I haven't examined the results to see if it backfired on him. (Can't be bothered as I'm just back from the Aviva).

Casey remains at 48th but it was a close call, one or two results and he may have missed out.

slave1

abff

Strange to see the world rankings without Tiger in the top 100. Down to 104 this week. I wonder will we see him in the Masters.

slave1

abff wrote: »

Strange to see the world rankings without Tiger in the top 100. Down to 104 this week. I wonder will we see him in the Masters.

I think at this stage the question is will we see him within 6 months, ahem

jjll

PARlance wrote: »

Casey remains at 48th but it was a close call, one or two results and he may have missed out.

Casey was 49th now 48 Robert Lee said he was going to go up 1 place that's why he didn't play

PARlance

jjll wrote: »

Casey was 49th now 48 Robert Lee said he was going to go up 1 place that's why he didn't play

I didnt hear what Lee said exactly but Casey not playing was a risk, he had the potential to rise to 48th (which he did) but he also could have potentially dropped outside the T50 too. There were ~14 players playing at the weekend that could have knocked him out.
4 on the European Tour, they all needed a win so only one could have gotten into the T50.
But I think there were ~10 players in the US at the weekend that could have also knocked him out.

slave1

Rikand

You're getting some great angles out there Slave