At its 1 October 2004 meeting at Mount Juliet Conrad in Co. Kilkenny, Ireland during the World Golf Championships - American Express Championship, the Governing Board of the Official World Golf Ranking approved a recommendation put forward by its Technical Committee to bring more players into consideration in establishing the strength of field calculation for the award of World Ranking Points to each event.

Effective 1 January 2005, the current strength of field rating system based on the top 100 ranked players will be extended to include all players in the top 200. Rating Value categories have been adjusted to accommodate an additional 100 rating points (one point for each player between 101 and 200) with particular attention paid to adding more flexibility into the lower end of the scale. These changes will give events in the lower and middle range of the ratings scale an opportunity to achieve higher World Ranking Points and reduce the number of events currently at their minimum points level without affecting the World Ranking Points currently awarded for events at the higher level.