Pro Fuming With World Rankings After Australian PGA Championship Finish

PGA Tour of Australasia pro David Micheluzzi has added his voice to the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) debate, questioning why he received over twice as many points in the Australian PGA Championship at the start of the year than in the same tournament last week.

The event held in January had a considerably lower profile than the one won by World No.3 Cameron Smith on Sunday. That’s because, unlike last week’s tournament, it was a standalone PGA Tour of Australasia event and not co-sanctioned with the DP World Tour. In January, Micheluzzi finished tied for ninth, for which he received 4.48 OWGR points. However, he performed even better last week, finishing sixth in a far stronger field. That improvement is not reflected in the OWGR points, though. This time, he only received 2.01 points. 

That has left Micheluzzi baffled. He pointed out the discrepancy on Twitter, posting images from the OWGR website showing the two results and writing: “There is two photos I’ve posted, one is a result I had at the Aus PGA at the start of the year which was just an Aus Tour event I came 9th and got 4.48 points. The other is last week a DP tour event with Cam playing, I came 6th and got 2.01 points. WTF is this s***!!” 

Micheluzzi’s comments are the latest frustrations voiced by pros on the perceived unfairness of the current OWGR criteria. Before the season-closing DP World Tour Championship earlier in the month, Jon Rahm described the OWGR’s changes to its strength of field calculations as “laughable.” 

Despite the tournament featuring seven of the world’s top 25 players, Rahm gained just 21.8 OWGR points for his win - less than half of the 46 awarded to Collin Morikawa for his victory the year before. That was even more controversial considering that the PGA Tour’s RSM Classic, played in the same week, saw winner Adam Svensson claim 37 points despite the highest-ranked player in the tournament being World No.30 Shane Lowry.

The new OWGR system took effect in August and immediately drew criticism, with one insider telling Golf Monthly: “The one thing that everybody has overlooked is the fact that the European Tour and the rest of the world have been absolutely shafted by the PGA Tour on world ranking points. That’s the one thing that’s never been mentioned, it’s been overlooked, and what the PGA Tour have done to the rest of the world is absolutely outrageous and with all the points decreasing from whenever it is, August 1st, 14th, it’ll be so hard for Europeans to get into the top 50 in the world now it’ll be crazy.”

Over three months into the new system, and that concern appears to be playing out. However, DP World Tour CEO Keith Pelley addressed the issue at the Tour’s season-closer in Dubai, suggesting changes could be in the offing. He said: “We implemented a new system but, like with any new system, in regardless of what aspect of business you’re in, you evaluate, you modify, you tweak and, at the next board meeting, we’ll have those conversations.”

That will be small consolation for Micheluzzi, but he did receive words of encouragement from former pros Barry Lane and Mike Clayton. Lane replied: “Well played the Ranking are utter s***. No reality to Tournaments. Play Korn ferry or PGA tour you will be just fine but anywhere else you get shafted.”

Meanwhile, Clayton, who has called for the OWGR to be scrapped, advised him to concentrate on his earnings, writing: “Who cares about the points?!  Look how much cash you made. Great work."

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