LIV Golf has formally withdrawn its request to be included in the World Golf Ranking this Tuesday, explaining in its statement that the OWGR (its acronym in English) cannot be an “official” ranking system because it has not recognised the performances of LIV golfers in recent years.
LIV first requested its inclusion in July 2022, less than a month after launching its invitation league. Last October the OWGR formally denied the request, citing among the arguments the scarcity of access and exit routes from the circuit.
In a letter accessed by Sports Illustrated and sent to LIV players competing this week in Hong Kong, CEO and Commissioner Greg Norman wrote that “the world ranking classification lacks accuracy, credibility and integrity. We have made significant efforts to fight for you and ensure that your achievements are recognised within the existing ranking system. Unfortunately, OWGR has shown little willingness to work productively with us”.
According to a senior LIV official, the World Ranking, an institution chaired by the major professional golf circuits and the Majors, told LIV a year ago that it had a problem with the access routes to the circuit. LIV was in its first full year as a league and announced plans to have a Promotion School in which three new players would join the circuit through a qualifying tournament, in addition to granting a place to the winner of the Order of Merit of the International Series. The official said that attempts to obtain information on what was needed to meet the criteria were unsuccessful.
LIV Golf has also been criticised for not having player rotation between tournaments, as its field of 54 players is practically closed, beyond changes due to injury or illness. The team format was also questioned, although LIV Golf maintains that its player regulations require playing according to the Rules of Golf, which do not allow giving advice in an individual competition.
LIV Golf’s opinion has long been that the OWGR – according to its own guidelines – does not require any future circuit to meet all its requirements. And it points out that you can get all or nothing and that the decision is exclusively up to the OWGR board.
This seven-member board is made up of representatives from each of the four Majors, as well as Jay Monahan, commissioner of the PGA Tour, Keith Pelley, CEO of the DP World Tour, and Keith Waters, executive of the DP World Tour overseeing international professional associations. These last three abstained from voting on the inclusion of LIV in the World Ranking, leaving the decision in the hands of the Majors representatives.
“We are not at war with them,” said the chairman of the OWGR board, Peter Dawson, former CEO of the R&A, interviewed by Associated Press after rejecting LIV’s candidacy last year. “The decision not to make them eligible is not political. It’s totally technical. It’s clear that LIV players are good enough to be ranked. They just don’t play in a format where they can be fairly ranked with the other 24 circuits and thousands of players competing in them”.
Dawson cited at the time that certain guidelines that LIV Golf does not meet, such as 36-hole cuts, 72-hole tournaments and an average participation of 75 players, were not necessarily a problem, as they could be solved through a mathematical format. The problem was rather the lack of player rotation, as well as the absence of promotions and demotions at the end of the season.
However, Dawson acknowledged that high-profile LIV players dropping in the World Ranking is a problem. Right now, there are only four LIV golfers among the top 50 in the world, three of whom have won Majors in the last two years. The rest are PGA Tour players, so the LIV executive suggested that means the OWGR is a “PGA Tour ranking”.
“Dustin Johnson, Sergio García, of course they should be in the ranking,” said Dawson. “We have to find a way to achieve it. I hope LIV can find a solution – not so much its format; that can be solved with a mathematical formula – but the classification and relegation”. The LIV executive said that OWGR never gave him any specific answer about what would work.
And Norman, in his letter, suggested that the OWGR system has left out LIV players for so long that, anyway, it would be difficult to make up lost ground. “The rankings are structured to penalise anyone who has not regularly played on an “Eligible Tour” with the points scales disproportionately rewarding the PGA Tour,” wrote Norman. “This is illustrated by the fact that only four players within the top 50 are not PGA Tour players (Jon Rahm (3), Tyrrell Hatton (17), Brooks Koepka (30) and Cam Smith (45). Even if LIV Golf events immediately received points, the World Ranking system is designed in such a way that it would be functionally impossible for you to regain positions close to the top of the ranking”.
Norman called for an independent ranking system and said the league continues “working to seek a direct ranking system with the Majors to ensure that LIV golfers are fairly represented and that golf fans around the world have the opportunity to see the best possible competition”.
It is unclear how much communication there has been between LIV Golf and each of the Majors. But the same officials of the Majors are also the ones who denied the OWGR candidacy. In addition, by inviting Joaquín Niemann to this year’s Masters, Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley cited his victory in the Australian Open and said nothing about his achievements in LIV Golf, even though he had just won in Mayakoba.
The PGA Tour, the DP World Tour and the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which finances LIV Golf, continue to assert that they are working on an agreement that unites all parties. Earlier this year, the PGA Tour announced that it was going to join forces with Strategic Sports Group to help finance its new for-profit venture PGA Tour Enterprises, in which, in theory, the PIF would also participate. Meanwhile, the circuits continue to operate separately.
It should not be ruled out that this decision by LIV to withdraw the proposal to the World Ranking has to do with the talks they are having with the Majors, although at the moment there is nothing concrete, or the negotiations that are being carried out with the PGA Tour.
