Official World Golf Ranking Ltd

The object of which OWGR Ltd is established is to provide a ranking system for golfers participating in professional golf tournaments. Following the early 1970’s dominance of PGA TOUR in the United States with players like Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Tom Watson, Johnny Miller, Tom Weiskopf, Billy Casper, Ben Crenshaw, Hubert Green and Hale Irwin along with Gary Player from South Africa one only had to look at the US PGA TOUR Money List to decide the best players in the World. In the late 1970’s and early to mid-1980’s many International players began to challenge that prominence. The likes of Seve Ballesteros, Greg Norman, Bernhard Langer, Nick Price, Isao Aoki, Graham Marsh, Tommy Nakajima, Sandy Lyle and Nick Faldo were playing and winning internationally and there came a need for a Worldwide Ranking system. The R&A were also looking to improve their exemption system for the Open Championship. Mark McCormack was aware of a World Ranking system that Tony Greer had been working on and after extensive research and discussions with the R&A and Sony the first SONY RANKING was launched at the 1986 Masters with the R&A the sanctioning body using the World Ranking as an exemption category for the Open – now, after nearly 28 years, all the Majors, World Golf Championships and many other events use the Official World Golf Ranking as a major tool in their exemption systems. The Governing Board and its Technical Committee have continuously monitored and refined the system over the years taking into account the ever changing structure of world golf and suggestions made from players and Tours alike.