Exhibit A

In the course of doing some projections about what it would take for Phil Mickelson to pass Tiger Woods in the World Rankings this week (answer: not a whole lot), I happened to have the following idea: what tournament contributes the most absolute points to a player's World Ranking? It's not necessarily an obvious question, because tournaments won a long time ago get weighted very lightly. So, just for fun, here are the answers for the current top 10. Assuming we like the OWGR formulas, these are the tournaments which most make us think these ten people are good golfers:

1. Martin Kaymer: 2010 PGA Championship, Win, 100 Rank Points, .7826 Weighting, 78.26 Adjusted Points
2. Lee Westwood: 2010 Open Championship, 2nd, 60 Rank Points, .7391 Weighting, 44.35 Adjusted Points
3. Luke Donald: 2011 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, Win, 76 Rank Points, 1.000 Weighting, 76.00 Adjusted Points
4. Graeme McDowell: 2010 US Open Championship, Win, 100 Rank Points, .6957 Weighting, 69.57 Adjusted Points
5. Tiger Woods: 2010 Chevron World Challenge, 2nd, 30 Rank Points, .9565 Weighting, 28.70 Adjusted Points
6. Phil Mickelson: 2010 Masters Tournament, Win, 100 Rank Points, .5870 Weighting, 58.70 Adjusted Points
7. Paul Casey: 2011 Volvo Golf Champions, Win, 38 Rank Points, 1.000 Weighting, 38.00 Adjusted Points
8. Rory McIlroy: 2010 Quail Hollow Championship, Win, 64 Rank Points, .6196 Weighting, 39.65 Adjusted Points
9. Matt Kuchar: 2010 The Barclays, Win, 70 Rank Points, .8043 Weighting, 56.30 Adjusted Points
10. Steve Stricker: 2010 Northern Trust Open, Win, 58 Rank Points, .4891 Weighting, 28.37 Adjusted Points

The first thing I notice is that I think all of these are correct. These are the single biggest reasons for thinking these guys are good. This, in turn, makes me have a little more confidence in the way the people at the OWGR do things. It's interesting to me that Tiger and Stricker are the two with the least compelling single reason to think they're good. In Tiger's case he's really just coasting on the handful of wins from the 2009 season, none of which are as big a deal at this point as the Chevron runner-up but of which there are several. If those drop out and nothing replaces them, then uh-oh, it'll just be his 2nd-place at a 16-man formerly unofficial invitational in December. This is, also, accurate, I think: the first thing I'd mention if you ask me why I think Tiger deserves to be considered a good golfer now is the Chevron, but next I'd probably talk about the fact that just two years ago he won six tournaments. You also see each of the last four majors represented here, but not all four winners: Louis Oosthiuzen isn't in the top 10, but the man who finished right behind him (though a fair way back) is.

Anyway, not an earth-shattering analysis or anything, but I think it's interesting.