Discipline Players Publicly Says Dawson

Peter Dawson

Royal & Ancient chief executive Peter Dawson believes the PGA and European tours should start going public with their discipline of players.

The U.S. tour does not disclose when a player is fined, and the European Tour typically keeps such matters quiet. It made an exception when Tiger Woods was shown on TV spitting on the green in Dubai because of the enormous publicity. Woods later apologised on Twitter.

"I would not want to give the impression in any way that the standards of behaviour in golf are poor," Dawson told the Press Association on Tuesday at Royal St. George's. "I think they are very high, and golf is still held up as a model for many other sports. These particular incidents that we see do get a great deal of publicity and rightly so.

"As regards what the tours' disciplinary policy should be in terms of whether it should be made public, I think if you look at the wider world of sport, that has become the norm," he said. "There are many good reasons for keeping it quiet, but I think it's possibly something that the tours who do that should look at changing, because I think putting these things in the public domain has a lot of benefits -- especially now that golf is an Olympic sport."

R&A Supports GEO Grants

The R&A will provide a significant package of funding, worth almost £1/4 million over the next three years, for the international non-profit-making body, the Golf Environment Organization (GEO).The funding is intended to assist GEO to further establish itself as a credible and respected sustainability authority in golf.

The support will be invested directly into the ongoing development of GEO’s OnCourse™ programme - which supports and recognises the environmental and social performance of golf clubs.

Peter Dawson, Chief Executive of The R&A, said: “The R&A invests in initiatives that we believe are in the best interests of the sustainable development of the game. Our support for GEO will assist them in further developing a programme that can help golf clubs improve and gain recognition for their contributions to people and the environment. We believe this will be of great benefit to those working at golf facilities, and to the overall reputation of golf.”

GEO’s Chief Executive Officer, Jonathan Smith, commented: “GEO is dedicated to supporting golf with credible advocacy, guidance and recognition. This funding will enable us to provide greater support to both clubs and our national partners, and to promote the programme more strongly to drive participation. We are very grateful to The R&A for this developmental backing.”

GEO works in partnership with an international network of golf industry organisations, leading environmental groups and corporate sponsors, including The European Tour, European Golf Association, UNEP, the British and International Golf Greenkeepers Association, the Federation of European Golf Greenkeepers Associations, and the Club Managers Associations of Europe, America and China. Over the last 18 months, GEO has joined forces with a number of national golf federations to jointly promote the OnCourse™ programme.

The announcement follows the recent launch of the GEO Legacy Guidance for Sustainable Golf Development, a project that was supported by a grant from The R&A.

New World Amateur Rankings

The official website of the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR) was launched on February 17. Administered jointly by the R&A and the USGA, and incorporating both the men's and the new women's ranking, the website ranks more than 8,000 players, awarding points based on more than 3,000 worldwide counting events. The WAGR compares amateur performance in elite competition over a rolling 52-week period.

The new portal offers an enhanced search function, which allows the user to look for players and events by name, region and country. It features an expanded player biography section, showing the selected player's full ranking history. And for the first time, detailed event information, including round-by-round scores and a breakdown of points awarded, will also be available.

The updated ranking, accompanied by news stories reporting the previous week's action, will appear on the website at 7 a.m. (EST), every Wednesday. Information about the WAGR system, as well as answers to the most frequently asked questions about the Ranking, is clearly displayed on the website.

The introduction of the Women's World Amateur Golf Ranking was announced earlier in the month. The launch follows an extensive period of testing by the R&A. The women's ranking currently has a calendar of 1,350 counting events with more than 3,100 ranked players from 50 countries.

The men's ranking was founded on January 1, 2007, and currently includes 1,800 events with more than 5,000 players from 70 countries. Since then, the ranking has been adopted to determine the fields at national amateur championships in Spain, Britain and the USA, as well as many other amateur events throughout the world. There have been 17 WAGR number ones, including the current world number seven professional, Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland, and 2010 USA Ryder Cup team member Rickie Fowler.

The current men's No. 1 is reigning U.S. Amateur champion Peter Uihlein of the United States. The women's No. 1 is 2010 LPGA Xavier International champion Mitsuki Katahira from Japan.

www.RandA.org/WAGR.