Saturday, January 13, 2007


JUDGEMENT OF SOLOMON:
FRED IN CALIFORNIA
SETS UP HIS OWN
WORLD AMATEUR
RANKINGS

The news that the R&A set up a world amateur ranking system at least a year ago has not yet filtered through to San Francisco, Californa.
That's from where a Mr Fred Solomon today launched the "first" Scratch Players World Amateur Rankings. Well, that's what it says in his Press Release.
All is revealed by Fred in a website: www.scratchplayers.org/world.am.rank.asp.
According to Mr Solomon (pictured above):
"There has never been an amateur ranking this extensive in the history of golf. It is the culmination of three years of research and extensive work. There are over 28,00 players in the database who have earned a finish position point somewhere worldwide during the last two years. Of those, only players with 100 or more “net” points are uploaded to the website weekly (almost 1600 currently).
"The ranking covers over 1000 tournaments worldwide annually. Many of these events are USA collegiate events injected into the world ranking via sub-rankings of US collegiate players prior to the D1 regionals.
PABLO IS WORLD NUMBER ONE?
"There are also factors for junior rankings that get in and over 350 individual amateur or open tournaments from every corner of the world (including Pakistan and Sri Lanka). Amateurs earning world pro ranking points in any event the last 2 years on one of the top nine pro tours worldwide earn points on the world amateur ranking scale. "
Never mind that Royal Aberdeen's Richie Ramsay is the current United States amateur champion and has been No 1 in the R&A World Amateur Rankings for the 20-odd weeks since he won the title ..... on Mr Solomon's list the top-ranked amateur in the world is Spain's Pablo Martin (pictured above), who just happens to be a student at Oklahoma State University.
Fred has Welshman Rhys Davies - also at university in the States - as the top-ranked European. Questions or comments on the ranking may be referred to the creator of the rankings:
Fred Solomon, Scratch Players, 1133 Taylor Street, San Francisco, California.
fs@scratchplayers.org
www.scratchplayers.org

ANY COMMENTS? E-mail them to colin@scottishgolfview.com

From Colin Farquharson, Editor, Scottishgolfview.com.
I posted an E-mail to Fred Solomon about the R&A World Amateur Golf Rankings being in place for a year or two now.

FRED SOLOMON SAYS HIS METHOD IS BETTER THAN R&A's

Here is Fred's reply:

Colin,
I’m certainly aware of the R&A ranking as an event I founded is in that ranking (Scratch Players Championship or SPC). Richie Ramsay finished T16 in the 2006 SPC won by GB&I Walker Cupper, Rhys Davies in a play-off with fellow Walker Cupper, Oliver Fisher.
I arranged guest housing for Richie with fellow Scotsman & R&A member, Ian Hay who is Arnold Palmer’s personal physician at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.
The 2006 National Collegiate Champion, Jonathan Moore tied for fourth right behind 2006 Western Amateur Champion, Bronson LaCassie of Australia. The SPC is annually held right before the US Amateur in the same vicinity and the Champion is exempt into the British Amateur along with virtually every national level amateur tournament in the States outside the USGA.
I’ve been getting updates weekly on the R&A ranking for a year and communicate regularly with David Moir. As for who was first, I started this project three years ago which is well documented here in the States by several credible sources. That is earlier than David or anyone else I’m aware of worldwide. I first got wind of the R&A attempt from the European Golf Association Secretary in the late Fall of 2005 or over a year & a half after I started this project.
I have already vented the SPWAR with most of the top amateur tournament directors in the States who universally favor my ranking as does the assistant national coach of England, Stephen Burnett.
FAVOURED BY US COLLEGE COACHES
Within the US collegiate coaching community, the ranking comparison is not even close. There are also certain members of the R&A who prefer the SPWAR as they have “issues” with the R&A attempt.
The distribution of top amateurs worldwide geographically in the SPWAR is more highly correlated to that of the world pro ranking. And as we know, all pros were once amateurs. The ranking of USA players in the SPWAR is much more accurate than the R&A attempt and there is no way David knows USA players as well as I do.
Virtually all top amateur tournaments in the States will use the SPWAR exclusively for purposes of entry exemptions and/or invitations. The 2007 Western Amateur entries, my No. 3 tournament in the world, are already out and the SPWAR is on it.
The primary difference between the SPWAR and the R&A ranking is the SPWAR is based on finish position versus the R&A which is attempting to compile theirs on some sort of stroke average method.
There is no credible way to find a common denominator to adjust scores for course difficulty worldwide and how does one account for match-play competition with a stroke average method?
UNWORKABLE METHOD
The bottom line is that method can’t work unless all players in the ranking population play courses that all have the same way of adjusting scores for course difficulty and if match-play is never used.
As you may be aware, there are many major amateur championships worldwide where the primary tournament format is match-play, including the top three amateur tournaments in the world.
There is a reason the world pro ranking uses the finish position method and it’s the method used by every regional or State golf association in the United States without exception. Simply put, it works the best.
I do appreciate your mention of the ranking on your news site. Should there be any significant changes in the ranking beyond the normal weekly updates website posted, I’ll certainly continue to email you related releases.

Fred Solomon
San Francisco, California

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