Ballesteros led the Official World Golf Ranking for a total of 61 weeks in the period from their inauguration (in April 1986) to September 1989, including being world number one at the end of the 1988 season. He also led McCormack's World Golf Rankings, published in McCormack's "World Of Professional Golf" annuals (from which the official rankings were developed) in 1983, 1984 and 1985. He was ever-present in the end of season world's top ten according to those rankings for fifteen years, from 1977 to 1991 inclusive.