Backspin: Golf's new era causing a dynamic OWGR

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How do you like your golf -- with a dynasty or with parity?

Since Tiger Woods has fallen from his perch atop the Official World Golf Ranking, a position he once held for a record 281 consecutive weeks, there has been a musical chairs of No. 1s. First it was Lee Westwood, then Martin Kaymer, nearly Luke Donald but now Westwood again.

Phil Mickelson had his opportunities, too, but he failed to capitalize on a dozen chances last year.

But the point is we're entering a new era in golf, one that could see any number of players hold the top spot in the OWGR over the next 5-10 years, especially with the two-year rolling scale the system operates on.

For example, Woods, who has fallen to No. 6, has lost 129.44 points from 2009 and 2010, and even more points had started falling off prior to that.

For those who have a hard time understanding how the system works, it's not as complicated as it sounds. It's certainly easier than college football's BCS, anyway.

Here's how it works, straight from OfficialWorldGolfRanking.com:

Points for each player are accumulated over a two year "rolling" period with the points awarded for each event maintained for a 13-week period to place additional emphasis on recent performances. Ranking points are then reduced in equal decrements (of 1/92nd of the original amount) for the remaining 91 weeks of the two-year period. Each player is then ranked according to his average points per tournament, which is determined by dividing his total number of points by the tournaments he has played over that two-year period. There is a minimum divisor of 40 tournaments over the two year ranking period and a maximum divisor of a player's last 58 events.

The official events from the six professional tours together with the Canadian, OneAsia, Nationwide and European Challenge Tours are all taken into account and points are awarded according to the players' finishing positions and are generally related to the strength of the field based on the number and ranking of the top-200 world ranked players and the top-30 of the home tour players in the respective tournaments (that's where it gets the most complicated).

Winning a major is worth 100 points with 60 points to the runner-up, 40 for finishing third, 30 for fourth all the way down to 1.5 points to last place. The winner of THE PLAYERS Championship gets 80, the winner of the BMW PGA Championship a minimum of 64 points.

Minimum points levels for the winners of official Tour events have been set at 6 points for the Canadian Tour (points to 6th place), 12 points for the European Challenge Tour (points to 14th place), 14 points for the Asian, Sunshine and Nationwide Tours (points to 17th place), 16 points for Australasian and Japanese Tours (points to 19th place) and 24 points for European Tour and the PGA TOUR (points to 27th place).

There are other points available, too, but that's the gist of it.

Some, like Jim Furyk, have downplayed the importance of being No. 1, but this is as wide open a race for No. 1 as we've had in a while, mostly thanks to Woods' dominance for a decade.

In other words, if you prefer a dynasty, it might be a while before one player is dominating the sport the way Woods has.

Stock up

Luke Donald: There's a long, long way to go in the season but Donald is making an early case for Player of the Year consideration. We all know the numbers by now, or should: Donald has finished in the top 10 in his last five starts on TOUR, dating back to his win at the WGC-Accenture Match Play. Ricky Barnes: Is Barnes about to break through and get the first win of his career? It sure feels like it after his second fourth-place finish of the season with a T4 Sunday in Hilton Head. Barnes is in the top 25 in scoring average on TOUR and if he continues to hit greens and make putts the way he did at The Heritage a win won't be far behind. Brandt Snedeker: Speaking of breakout seasons ... Snedeker's victory was his first since 2007 and he looks like he could be on the verge of a fairly big year. Snedeker has finished in the top 15 in four of his last starts with three of those inside the top 4, including of course Sunday's win.

Stock down

Ernie Els: The last couple of months haven't been so easy for the Big Easy. Since his tie for 15th at the WGC-Cadillac Championship, Els hasn't registered a finish in the top 45 and last week he shot 75 and 78. He also started toying with a belly putter last week -- Els ranks 159th in putting average and 190th in putts per round this year. The latter is not a good sign for someone like Els, who has always been one of the game's smoothest putters -- up until the last couple of years. Sean O'Hair: Last week marked O'Hair's fourth straight missed cut and on the year he has just one top-25. So what's the problem? For starters, O'Hair's ball-striking has been way off -- he's hitting less than 60 percent of his greens in regulation, ranking 177th at 59.09 percent. Zach Johnson: Nine straight rounds in the 70s have added up to two straight missed cuts and a tie for 47th in Johnson's last three starts. Johnson gets more out of his game than arguably anybody on TOUR but right now he's not. One reason: His greens in regulation are down this season and if he's not dialed in from 125-150 yards, which he hasn't been, Johnson is going to struggle.

THE BACK NINE: 9 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

1. Who would have thought 12 under would hold up Sunday at Harbour Town? Certainly not Brandt Snedeker, who admitted afterward that at the start of the day he didn't expect to be sitting in the interview room after teeing off at noon. That's golf, though, and it was another example of a guy putting up a number early and seeing if anyone could catch him.

2. You think No. 1 isn't important? It is to Luke Donald, and the prospects of reaching one of the game's pinnacles certainly weighed on him Sunday. "It's hard to put that out of your mind," Donald said. "It was going to be some big rewards if I won today. But I'll try and find the positives from this week and move on to next week."

3. Who will replace Bobby Brown on the bag for Dustin Johnson? It doesn't sound like a decision is imminent, but a strong, veteran caddie would serve the laid-back Johnson well.

4. Circling back to Ernie Els and his experimenting with a belly putter, he told GolfDgest.com: "I think I might just need a different look and a different way of seeing the putts. It feels OK, but you don't really know until you put it under the gun."

5. This is just a footnote, but one worth, well, noting: Bio Kim, the youngest player on TOUR, carded a 65 Sunday to finish in a tie for 21st at The Heritage.

6. Speaking of footnotes, Brian Davis still carries with him the now infamous reed that cost him two strokes in the final round of the 2010 Heritage. I'm not sure that's the kind of karma I'd want to keep around.

7. Ken Green teamed with Mark Calcavecchia at last week's Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf, where the two finished 31st out of the 34 teams in the field. The bigger story of course is that Green played at all after losing the lower half of his right leg two years ago. Green's return to golf obviously hasn't been easy. He told Golfweek's Jeff Rude last week that he takes three kinds of pain medication and has seen at least a dozen doctors since June. Still, Green presses on, telling Golfweek, "This is my little bit of heaven, playing professional golf at this level. Even though I may stink, to be out there fighting gives me an extreme lift. I'm really excited about it. It's definitely going to boost my morale."

8. Last week I had a chance to visit TaylorMade headquarters in Carlsbad, Calif., for an upcoming equipment story mostly focusing on the company's R11 and the splash it's had in the game. I also sat down with Sean Toulon and Dr. Benoit Vincent for a Q&A that will be part of the story. A couple of interesting nuggets I can share without spoiling the story: First, they tried pretty much every color they could think of before settling on white for the crown of the R11, basically because it created the most contrast against the grass and because they knew creating another driver with another black head wouldn't create any buzz in the market. They also think another 20 or so yards is out there off the tee in the near future. Of course much of that depends on the limitations placed on things like clubheads and golf balls.

9. Speaking of TaylorMade, part of the story involved going through a driver fitting. I'd just come off hitting my previous driver really well but when I saw the numbers side-by-side it was mind boggling how much I was losing by not being properly fit. It makes a difference and as my former Golf Digest colleague Mike Stachura pointed out via Twitter, there are a number of places you can go to get fit.

Forward Spin

Last year, Jason Bohn held off Jeff Overton to win the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, fighting off tars as he tapped in on the 18th hole for a two-shot victory. It might be tougher this time around given how well Luke Donald and Graeme McDowell are playing this year. Overton is also back and Rickie Fowler is in the field, too. The weather forecast also looks better with only a 30 percent chance of storms on Sunday. Last year, the tournament was plagued by bad weather much of the week.

Next Kodak Challenge hole

TOURNAMENT: Zurich Classic of New Orleans HOLE: The par-3, 215-yard 17th at TPC Louisiana ABOUT THE HOLE: Bunkers to the left were eliminated and replaced by bulkheading but the pot bunker on the right remains. Par will be a great score on the newly reshaped green. Kodak Challenge standings