LIV Golf responds to OWGR after being denied points eligibility
LIV Golf blasted the Official World Golf Ranking board Tuesday after the second-year venture was told its events would not count toward crucial points for players.
“A ranking which fails to fairly represent all participants, irrespective of where in the world they play golf, robs fans, players and all of golf’s stakeholders of the objective basis underpinning any accurate recognition of the world’s best player performances,” LIV Golf said in a statement. “It also robs some traditional tournaments of the best fields possible. Professional golf is now without a true or global scoring and ranking system.”
The OWGR’s decision, which it said could be revisited if LIV makes certain structural changes, means a number of prominent players who defected to the Saudi-backed league from the PGA Tour will continue to tumble down the world rankings. In turn, that will make it more difficult for them to continue competing in top events such as the Masters without existing exemptions, unless the major tournaments change some of their qualifying criteria.
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At issue, OWGR Chairman Peter Dawson said in a letter to LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman and interim COO Gary Davidson, are two of LIV’s unusual aspects: its guarantees of inclusion for several high-profile players and relative lack of annual turnover, and its team-competition format. In the letter, Dawson said that in a July phone discussion, his group was told that 14 of LIV’s 48 participants will be invited back for the 2024 season and as few as four new players might be joining it at that point.
The OWGR board “determined that the current structure is not consistent with the underlying principles of fairness and meritocracy on which the OWGR system is based.”
LIV applied to become an OWGR-eligible tour approximately 16 months ago, shortly after it launched. Armed with massive financial resources from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the new league had already begun luring away some of the PGA Tour’s biggest names, including Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and Cameron Smith, with guaranteed contracts that reportedly ran well into nine figures.
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Going forward, players considering a lucrative offer from LIV may have to weigh that financial security against the likelihood that their chances of competing in major tournaments will decrease.
“Players have historically remained subject to a single world ranking to qualify for Major Championships, the biggest events, and for corporate sponsor contract value,” LIV Golf said Tuesday. “… There is no benefit for fans or players from the lack of trust or clarity as long as the best player performances are not recognized.”
In addition to Dawson, a former chief executive of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, the governing board for the OWGR is composed of six high-ranking officials in golf: PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan; PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh; U.S. Golf Association CEO Mike Whan; Keith Waters of the International Federation of PGA Tours; Augusta National executive director Will Jones; European tour chief executive Keith Pelley; and R&A chief executive Martin Slumbers.
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Monahan, Pelley and Waters previously recused themselves from the OWGR’s deliberations over LIV eligibility, according to the Associated Press, to avoid conflict-of-interest issues.
Dawson told the AP on Tuesday that his organization is “not at war” with LIV.
“This decision not to make them eligible is not political,” he said. “It is entirely technical. LIV players are self-evidently good enough to be ranked. They’re just not playing in a format where they can be ranked equitably with the other 24 tours and thousands of players trying to compete on them.”
Earlier this year, the PGA Tour, the European tour and the PIF agreed to a partnership intended to create a new for-profit commercial entity under which the two established circuits and LIV Golf would continue operating distinct tours. In a proposed framework for the partnership, which has drawn the interest of Congress amid a lengthy process of possible consummation, the PGA and European tours agreed to “cooperate in good faith and use best efforts to secure OWGR recognition for LIV events.”
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The PGA Tour did not respond Tuesday to a request for comment.
Players who joined LIV have been banned from the PGA and European tours, where competitors can earn the most world rankings points for their results. Those in the OWGR top 50 gain automatic inclusion in the Masters field, while the U.S. Open invites those in the top 60. Players are also granted exemptions into major tournament fields if they have won one of them at some point in the past few years.
DeChambeau’s victory in the 2020 U.S. Open, for example, means he has an exemption for that tournament through 2030 and for the other three majors through 2025. Meanwhile, his OWGR ranking has plummeted from 28th after his most recent non-major appearance on the PGA Tour, a missed cut at the 2022 Memorial, to a current placement of 132nd. After shooting a scorching 58 in the final round to win a LIV event at the Greenbrier in West Virginia this August, DeChambeau’s OWGR ranking dropped from 107th to 109th.
Koepka was ranked 118th in April when, via an exemption, he played in the Masters, finished second and jumped back up to 39th. A subsequent victory in this year’s PGA Championship — for his fifth major title — vaulted Koepka to 13th, and he currently sits at No. 18 after playing in two more OWGR-eligible events, the U.S. Open (17th place) and the British Open (64th). Through 12 LIV events this year, with two more on the schedule, Koepka is fifth in that circuit’s standings, behind Smith (who won the 2022 British Open), Talor Gooch, DeChambeau and 2018 Masters champion Patrick Reed.
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In May, DeChambeau suggested the OWGR could create “an exemption category for LIV players based on how they play during the course of the year.”
“I think that would be the most fair and opportune thing for LIV golfers,” he continued, “considering the fields we have, the major champions we have, and the elite-level play that we have each and every week. … The OWGR points — we have gone so far down the list now that it’s really difficult to make us even relevant.”
Among LIV Golf’s unusual characteristics is that its tournaments are decided over 54 holes without cuts, not the usual 72 with a 36-hole cut. At 48 players, its fields are smaller than those of most OWGR-eligible tournaments. In his letter, Dawson said the OWGR board members “determined that certain of the concerns regarding the format of how each LIV event is played can likely be fairly managed through an appropriate mathematical formula. … These would include size of field, number of holes played, and absence of a cut.”
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Changes LIV Golf will need to make for world rankings eligibility, per the letter, include the development of “a structure that invites new players based on objective, recent performance and relegates underperforming players more quickly and equitably.”
“The decision to respectfully decline LIV’s application at this time,” Dawson added in the letter, “is not meant to discourage your efforts to innovate in men’s professional golf and/or cause you to make changes you may not believe to be in the best interests of your tour and events.”
In its response, LIV said: “OWGR’s sole objective is to rank the best players across the globe. Today’s communication makes clear that it can no longer deliver on that objective.”
Rick Maese contributed to this report.
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