The Official World Golf Ranking is a system for rating the performance level of male professional golfers (although there is no rule prohibiting women from being ranked). It was introduced in 1986 and is endorsed by the four major championships and six major professional tours, five of which are charter members of the International Federation of PGA Tours:

Points are also awarded for high finishes on six other tours:

The initiative for the creation of the Official World Golf Ranking came from the Championship Committee of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, which found in the 1980s that its system of issuing invitations to The Open Championship on a tour by tour basis was omitting an increasing number of top players because more of them were dividing their time between tours, and from preeminent sports agent Mark McCormack, who was the first chairman of the International Advisory Committee which oversees the rankings. The system used to calculate the rankings was developed from McCormack's World Golf Rankings, which were published in his World of Professional Golf Annual from 1968 to 1985, although these were purely unofficial and not used for any wider purpose (such as inviting players to major tournaments).

Rory McIlroy, MBE (born 4 May 1989) is a Northern Irish professional golfer from Holywood in County Down. He is formerly the World Number One. On 19 June 2011 he won the U.S. Open, setting a record score of 16-under-par on his way to an eight-shot victory. He has been cited as the most exciting young prospect in golf and having the potential to become one of the highest earners in sports in terms of endorsements.

McIlroy has represented Europe, Great Britain & Ireland, and Ireland as both an amateur and a professional. He had a successful amateur career, topping the World Amateur Golf Ranking for one week as a 17-year-old in 2007. Later that year he turned professional and soon established himself on the European Tour. He had his first win on the European Tour in 2009, and on the PGA Tour in 2010. He represented Europe in the 2010 Ryder Cup.

McIlroy was born in Holywood, County Down, Northern Ireland. He is the only child of Gerry and Rosie (née McDonald) McIlroy; he attended St. Patrick's Primary School and then Sullivan Upper School.

Liang Wen-Chong (born 2 August 1978) is a Chinese professional golfer. He is the highest ranked golfer from the People's Republic of China and the only Chinese golfer in the top 100 of the Official World Golf Ranking. He has succeeded his mentor Zhang Lian-wei as the top Chinese player.

Liang plays on the Asian Tour, Japan Golf Tour and OneAsia Tour. He has won several tournaments in China, but his best finish on the Japan Golf Tour is second. After more than a dozen top ten finishes on the Asian Tour, he won the 2007 Singapore Masters, which was co-sanctioned by the Asian Tour and the European Tour. He was the second golfer from the People's Republic of China to win on the European Tour after Zhang Lian-wei. In August 2007 he became the first golfer from the People's Republic of China to play in the PGA Championship. He ended up missing the cut. He also received a special invitation to play in the 2008 Masters Tournament.

In 2007, Liang won the Order of Merit on the Asian Tour, becoming the first from mainland China to do so.

Sir Nicholas Alexander Faldo (born 18 July 1957) is an English professional golfer on the European Tour who now mainly works as an on air golf analyst. Over his career, he has won six majors: three Open Championships and three Masters. He was ranked the World No. 1 on the Official World Golf Rankings for a total of 98 weeks.

In 2006, Faldo became the lead golf analyst for CBS Sports.

Faldo was born in Welwyn Garden City, England. He borrowed some clubs from his neighbours after watching Jack Nicklaus play the 1971 Masters on television. While working as a carpet fitter, Faldo won the English Amateur and the British Youths Championship in 1975. He turned professional in 1976 and quickly achieved success, finishing 8th on the European Tour Order of Merit in 1977 and 3rd in 1978 and winning a European Tour event in each of those seasons. In the former year he became the youngest player to appear in the Ryder Cup at the age of 21. Faldo was one of the leading players on the European Tour in the early 1980s, and he topped the Order of Merit in 1983.

Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods (born December 30, 1975) is an American professional golfer whose achievements to date rank him among the most successful golfers of all time. Formerly the World No. 1, he is the highest-paid professional athlete in the world, having earned an estimated US$90.5 million from winnings and endorsements in 2010.

Woods turned professional in 1996, and by April 1997 he had already won his first major, the 1997 Masters. He first reached the number one position in the world rankings in June 1997. Through the 2000s, Woods was the dominant force in golf, spending 264 weeks from August 1999 to September 2004 and 281 weeks from June 2005 to October 2010 as world number one. From December 2009 to early April 2010, Woods took leave from professional golf to focus on his marriage after he admitted infidelity. His multiple infidelities were revealed by several different women, through many worldwide media sources. This was followed by a loss of form, and his ranking gradually fell to a low of #58 in November 2011. He snapped a career-long winless streak of 107 weeks when he captured the Chevron World Challenge in December 2011. As of April 8, 2012, he is ranked #8.