Okay, it would have been nice to reach No.1 – No.3 was my highest-ever – and I know I was in the top-10 for a bit. But I didn’t really care. Not much anyway.

When it came to the rankings, I took the view that I knew what I knew. If I arrived at a tournament and saw Ernie Els was, say, No.7 in the world, I never took it even remotely seriously. I still thought he was No.2 behind Tiger. If someone had said to me there were six players better than Ernie I would just have laughed. The same is true in other sports. If Roger Federer arrived at Wimbledon seeded fourth, my reaction would not have changed. I would still have thought of him as No.1.

I’m sure many of my peers felt pretty much the same way. In my experience, guys cared far more about where they were on their home tours, where they were on the money-list and whether or not they were getting into the biggest tournaments. There was a period where contracts did have world ranking clauses, which actually led to players manipulating their schedules in order to stay in, say, the top-50 and guarantee entry into the majors. That was exactly the sort of thing, to my mind, that defeated the point of the world rankings.

The bottom line? The players know who the best players are. They just do. Official rankings are more to create public interest and give the media something to report on. I mean, take Justin Thomas at the moment. I can’t imagine he is teeing-up at events focusing on how he needs to play well to improve his world ranking. That’s not what golfers think about. We’re all just trying to play as well as we can. Where we stand with regard to getting into end-of-season events like the Tour Championship is the biggest priority. So, our position on the relevant money-list is infinitely more important than our world ranking.

It’s a bit like golf course rankings. In one respect they are a bit of harmless nonsense, not to be taken too seriously. If you love your home course, who cares what anyone else thinks? Who cares if your course is 70th and the one down the road is 50th? If you enjoy your course more, do those numbers really matter? They do not. It’s all totally subjective.

The same is true of the world ranking. How do you measure how hard it is to win a tournament in Europe compared to winning one in America? On paper, the field in Europe may look inferior, but it could still contain ten players performing better than anyone else in the world that week. That same week the event in America might see a drop in performance levels for whatever reason. So maybe the event that was harder to win was the one with the ‘weaker’ field. Given that possibility, I’m not sure you can ever have an equitable ranking system.

I have always felt sorry for talented guys who were based in Europe and were clearly in the top-20 or 30 in the world. I say that even if, on the few weeks they got to play in the United States, they didn’t do that well. It wasn’t fair to judge them on events played when they were in a foreign country and probably jet-lagged. For them, it was a new and unfamiliar environment.

RIGHT: Colin Montgomerie rarely had a bad week on home soil. PHOTO: Getty Images.

Back in the day, Colin Montgomerie suffered a bit from that lack of understanding, even if he did play well in some majors in the States and got as high as No.2 in the world. When I was competing in Europe, he was probably the second-best player in the world. When Ernie would show up and someone like David Duval showed up, Monty would beat them more often than not. On his home turf admittedly. But he rarely had a bad week.

I could say the same about Lee Westwood, who actually did get to No.1 in the world. When I was in Europe, he was second-best only to Monty. They were far and away the best on tour. It was comical the gap between them and third. But the attitude in the States was one based on ignorance; they simply had no idea how good those guys were.

Back up to date, Scottie Scheffler has clearly been the best player in the world this year. But I still think Rory McIlroy is better. And I still think, if everyone was playing their best, Jon Rahm would beat both of them down the stretch on Sunday. But I still like watching Rory play. And I still think he has a higher ceiling than the other two. That all may sound illogical, but I bet you know exactly what I mean.

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Having said all that, people do like rankings so I guess we have to create them. But they all need to be taken with a grain of salt. Think about it. If you do, you surely come to the conclusion that the best player in the world is a different guy almost every day. I’m writing these words the day after Viktor Hovland shot 61 to win the BMW Championship in Chicago. There was no doubt he was the best player on the planet that day.

That gets me thinking about what length body of work should we be taking into account? Is it six months, a year, two years? Two years is too long because it can take too long for a player to drop in the rankings if he loses form. One day is clearly too short. So maybe we need to create what they already have in tennis. In that sport, finishing the year as No.1 is a big deal. So is being the best player in that year. Maybe we need a trophy to give the best golfer in each calendar year. That would be interesting and be an incentive for players to play more towards the end of a year in places like Australia in order to finish first.

Scottie Scheffler has been the best player in the world in 2023, but Rory McIlroy is a better player, says Ogilvy. PHOTO: Getty Images.

Hang on though. We could simply look at what the bookmakers say on any given week. Whomever they install as tournament favourite is the best player. The bookies know what is going on. They have all the analytics and data and they are definitely not in the business of giving money away. If they think Rory is the favourite, he is probably the best player on that course that week.

A final thought, one that only underlines how immeasurable this is in golf. Our game is not like, say, athletics. When Usain Bolt was around, he won pretty much every time he ran. Because 100 metres is always 100 metres. It’s the same thing every time. And if the same guy wins every time, measuring who is the best is not that hard.

But golf isn’t like that. The playing field changes every week. You can even go to the same course every year and find how it plays has altered hugely because of prevailing weather conditions. And no two shots are ever exactly the same, even those played from exactly the same place on consecutive days. Then there is the fact that, theoretically, a player could become No.1 by finishing second every week. And it wouldn’t take that long for him to do so.

There’s no logic to any of this. I give up.