Tiger Woods sides with Jon Rahm on OWGR debate

NASSAU, Bahamas – Count Tiger Woods in the Jon Rahm camp of the world ranking divide.

Three weeks ago, Rahm pushed back when the DP World Tour Championship was awarded fewer points than that week’s PGA Tour stop at the RSM Classic, despite no players ranked inside the top 20 playing at Sea Island Resort. The European finale had seven top-25 players and world No. 1 Rory McIlroy.

Although Woods didn’t go as far as Rahm, who called the new ranking system “laughable,” he did point out the problem in the new system that leans toward full-field events over limited-field tournaments like the DP World Tour finale.

Full-field tee times from the Hero World Challenge

“It’s a flawed system. That’s something we all here recognize,” Woods said Tuesday at the Hero World Challenge. “The field at Dubai got less points than Sea Island and more of the top players were there in Dubai, so obviously there’s a flawed system.”

The bigger question was how the rankings might be adjusted to address those concerns.

“We’re going to have to have [meetings] with the world ranking, the main tours that are involved in it, somehow come up with a better system than is in place now,” Woods said. “I remember I had a big lead in my career, I didn’t have to play a single tournament the next year, and I still would be ranked No. 1. We changed that system then. It has been changed in the past, and I’m sure this will be changed hopefully soon.”