Who do the world rankings benefit? I guess the players feel some sense of pride by being a highly ranked player. Maybe sponsors can gloat that they have ten of the top thirty players in the world at their tournament. But, seriously, does anyone know who the 30th ranked player in the world is. Does anyone care? Westwood proved that you don't even have to win that frequently to overtake the spot. Just be in contention a lot and that's good enough.
Golf is all about name recognition. There are certain names that you just know. Tiger, Phil, Ernie, and Vijay to name a few. These guys are noticed because of who they are and what they've done. We don't need a ranking system to verify that. We didn't have a world ranking system before 1985 and things got along just fine.
Also, I think the rankings might affect a guys play. Fred Couples never looked comfortable when he was tabbed as the worlds #1. David Duval carries around the distinction of a player who has fallen so far from his #1 ranking. Does he really need to answer questions about that? Phil Mickelson has fallen flat on his face in weeks where he could have overtaken the spot had he played slightly above average.
The best players in the game are always judged by how many majors they win. It's that simple.
I know we need some sort of ranking system in order to know who to invite to these big tournaments. It just seems that these rankings adds more of a drama than their really needs to be.
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