LIV Golf loses bid for world golf ranking points due to format issues

After well more than a year of deliberation, the Official World Golf Ranking has rejected LIV Golf’s application for world ranking points.

The Associated Press reported the reason for the rejection was the OWGR was unable to compare the 48-player, 54-hole, shotgun start, no-cut events with the other 24 tours under its world ranking wing. Also stated to be of concern were the qualifying and relegation methods employed by LIV Golf.

“We are not at war with them,” Peter Dawson, chairman of the OWGR board, said to the AP. “This decision not to make them eligible is not political. 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.”

Commissioner Greg Norman and LIV Golf players have questioned the world ranking system for the last year and have been critical of the board members who may have conflicting interests when it comes to the upstart circuit backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. However, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, DP World Tour chief executive Keith Pelley and the International Federation of PGA Tours’ Keith Waters all reportedly recused themselves from the LIV decision to avoid any such conflict.

According to the AP, the committee that rejected LIV’s application comprised leaders from Augusta National, the PGA of America, the U.S. Golf Association and The R&A, which run the four majors. The majors use the OWGR as part of their qualifying criteria.

“You should realize that the OWGR is not accurate, one,” Bryson DeChambeau said this year ahead of LIV Golf Singapore. “Two, I think that they need to come to a resolution or it will become obsolete. It’s pretty much almost obsolete as of right now. But again, if the majors and everything continue to have that as their ranking system, then they are biting it quite heavily.”

“It’s going to all iron itself out because if you’re one of the majors, if you’re the Masters, you’re not looking at, ‘We should keep these guys out,’ ” Phil Mickelson said. “You’re saying to yourself, ‘We want to have the best field, we want to have the best players, and these guys added a lot to the tournament this year at the Masters. How do we get them included?’”

“Dustin Johnson, Sergio Garcia, of course they should be in the ranking,” Dawson said to the AP. “We need to find a way to get that done. I hope that LIV can find a solution – not so much their format; that can be dealt with through a mathematical formula – but the qualification and relegation.”

Despite their qualms, LIV Golf is using the OWGR for its 72-hole promotion event, where players ranked within the top 200 will be eligible. While there is a pathway in place for some outside players to gain access to LIV, it’s apparently not yet up to the OWGR’s standards.

LIV Golf is hosting its final regular-season event of the 2023 schedule this week in Saudi Arabia, and will host its Team Championship finale next week at Trump National Doral in Miami.