During its meeting at The Open Championship at Turnberry the Governing Board of the Official World Golf Ranking approved a measure to introduce a “Maximum Divisor” into the World Ranking system. The Governing Board is comprised of representatives from the PGA TOUR, European Tour, the International Federation of PGA Tours and the host organisations of the men’s Major Championships – The R&A, the USGA, the PGA of America and Augusta National Golf Club.

The Maximum Divisor is designed to diminish current concerns that players might be penalised for playing a significant number of tournaments because their divisor is much higher as a result.  At a time when Tours and sponsors alike are looking for players to enter more events, the Board agreed that the introduction of a “Maximum Divisor” over the two-year ranking period would alleviate this situation.

This divisor will be for a player’s last 52 events – the current average number of events played by the world’s top 200 players over the two-year ranking cycle. By using the “Last-52” events, a player who exceeds the maximum divisor will retain his current ranking points and only lose his earlier degraded points and retain a divisor of 52. 

“The Board believes this measure will encourage players to play more often, which will be a positive development for all Tours and the game of professional golf in general,” said Sir Michael Bonallack, Chairman of the Governing Board of the Official World Golf Ranking.

Rather than delay the application of the rule for a two-year period, as has been the case with other changes, the Board agreed to implement the new system in stages, beginning January 2010.  This process is aimed to avoid any significant changes in a player’s ranking prior to any Official World Golf Ranking eligibility cut-off date for a Major Championship or World Golf Championship.  The current “Minimum Divisor” of 40 events over the two-year ranking period will remain unchanged.

Following is the exact language regarding the Maximum Divisor measure:

Starting on Week No.1 2010 (week ending January 3) a Maximum Divisor will be introduced represented by a “Player’s last 60 events”, followed by a reduction of the number of events every six months until finally on Week 1 2012 (week ending January 8) with a Maximum Divisor of the “Player’s last 52 events”.

  Last 60  Effective Week 1 2010 (week ending January 3)
   Last 58  Effective Week 26 2010 (week ending June 27)
   Last 56  Effective Week 1 2011 (week ending January 2)
   Last 54  Effective Week 26 2011 (week ending June 26)
   Last 52  Effective Week 1 2012 (week ending January 8)