WELLINGTON: New Zealand’s Lydia Ko has been reinstated as world number one after faulty projections issued last week led the LPGA to believe Thailand’s Ariya Jutanugarn had taken over at the top, Women’s World Golf Rankings (WWGR) officials said on Monday.
The mistake followed the results from the ShopRite LPGA Classic in New Jersey that ended on Sunday.
The LPGA Tour telephoned Ko and Jutanugarn on Monday to explain the confusion and set the record straight, with Ko 0.01 points ahead of Jutanugarn, a tour spokesman said.
“Last week, we issued some projections which showed Ariya Jutanugarn taking over the No 1 spot in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings based on player finishes at the LPGA’s 2017 ShopRite LPGA Classic which concluded yesterday,” the Technical Provider of the Women’s World Golf Rankings said in a statement.
“However, when official rankings were run this morning (Monday), we discovered a bug in the projection tool.”
The WWGR said the tool used the date on which the projections were run rather than the date when the rankings would be released, thus including an additional tournament in the event count that was dropped in Monday’s computer run.
“We are working to correct the problem within the projection tool and we apologise for the error in last week’s projections,” the WWGR said.
The reign at the top by Ko, who did not compete in last week’s event, thus continues for at least an 85th successive week before the LPGA Tour contests the Manulife LPGA Classic starting on Thursday in Cambridge, Ontario. — Reuters
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