Mark McCormack's world golf rankings

The McCormack rankings were unofficial world golf rankings published in Mark McCormack's World of Professional Golf Annual from 1968 to 1985, and were a forerunner of the current Official World Golf Ranking. Unlike their replacement they were not used to select fields for tournaments, and served no real purpose other than as a talking point.

The rankings were the first that had been compiled that took account of results from all the world's major professional tours, from the United States, Europe, Japan, Asia, Africa, and Australia. The system rewarded players for their finishing places in tournaments played over a three-year period, with more points awarded for more recent achievements, and more points awarded for major championships and tour events with strong fields than for those in other tournaments. They also reflected McCormack's philosophy that victory should be strongly rewarded, wherever in the world it took place – winners of tournaments received additional bonus points, and only high finishers in tournaments received any recognition - for example just the top ten places received ranking points in major championships.

The first player to lead the rankings was McCormack's client Jack Nicklaus (although Nicklaus left his business arrangement with McCormack in 1970), and he continued to lead them for almost all of the 1970s decade. He would be succeeded as number one in 1978 by Tom Watson, who in turn was succeeded in 1983 by Seve Ballesteros. Had McCormack's rankings of the time been based on results over just the most recent two years, like their modern counterpart, Gary Player would have been number one in 1969 instead of Nicklaus, Raymond Floyd number one at the end of 1982 instead of Tom Watson (despite the latter's two major victories that summer) and Bernhard Langer would have been number one at the end of 1985 instead of Ballesteros. All the other year-end number ones, however, would have remained as they were on the three-year system.

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