Something Rank About This System

Does anybody understand the official world ranking?

Uh, not really. Not many players do, either, even though the point system is the method used to qualify to play in the limited-field $5-million tournaments such as next week’s Andersen Consulting Match Play Championship at La Costa, which kicks off the exclusive money orgy for the top players.

The top 64 get in. But how are they chosen? It’s the ranking, a two-year system that awards points for finishes in tournaments.

Sounds simple, but it’s not.

“For instance, I didn’t play for two weeks and I moved up in the rankings,” Loren Roberts said. “Then I tied for seventh the next week and dropped a spot.”

Paul Azinger had a similar story. He started the year No. 61, missed two cuts and stayed 61, then finished 14th at Phoenix, one shot out of the top 10, and dropped to No. 62.

Golf Digest decided to find a mathematician to figure out what’s wrong with the system and hired Dean Knuth, a former USGA executive who runs the San Diego office of Intel-National Research Institute, which writes high-tech software for the U.S. military.

Knuth identified eight trouble spots:

* Current performance isn’t given enough weight.

* Majors don’t get enough points.

* Strength of field is weighted too heavily toward participation of the top-ranked players.

* Strength of field penalizes the Europeans.

* The averaging procedure of total points divided by total events puts too much emphasis on top-10 finishes.

* Point distribution is flawed.

* Japan and Australasian tours get too many points.

* Too many points are awarded to unofficial, off-season events.

*

Notables who missed the cut, which was even-par 142: Lanny Wadkins, Ben Crenshaw and Paul Stankowski at 143, Tom Kite and Frank Nobilo at 144, Payne Stewart and Fred Funk at 145 and Paul Azinger and Steve Stricker at 146.

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It isn’t what you would call a fast start when you miss the cut in your first three tournaments, which is what Brad Fabel did.

“I’ve been out there, but I haven’t been playing,” Fabel said.

So it was sort of a surprise to Fabel when he turned in a seven-under 64 Friday at Riviera.

Fabel, 43, hasn’t won in his 13 years on the PGA Tour, but he’s only four shots off the lead after his seven-birdie second round. Fabel said he has changed things up a bit because he thought he was becoming too mechanical.

The Western Kentucky public relations graduate suffered a hand injury in 1993, lost his PGA Tour card and then got it back when he finished 10th on the 1995 Nike Tour money list. He has also battled a bad back, but Fabel said he takes care of it.

“I try to work out,” he said. “Problem is, I like to eat too.”

He had a problem early in his career when he gave up golf and took a real job for three years--selling drill bits to mining companies. Fabel also worked underground for a while and that gave him a perspective on how to act when things aren’t going so well on the golf course.

“I decided four-foot downhill putts weren’t all that bad,” he said.