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LIV Golf has withdrawn its software for Official World Golf Rating recognition and the awarding of factors for his or her particular person tournaments, ending a 19-month course of that started with the preliminary July 2022 submission.
Greg Norman, commissioner of LIV Golf, advised gamers concerning the choice in an emailed letter, saying partly that “a decision which protects the accuracy, credibility and integrity of the OWGR rankings not exists.”
The Official World Golf Rating formally declined the LIV Golf software in October 2023, citing points with the group golf element and an absence of mobility within the league as the most important points in accrediting their occasions. OWGR chair Peter Dawson stated a number of the extra contentious element of LIV Golf’s format — 54 holes, then 48-player fields and no cuts — weren’t fully incompatible with their system.
LIV believes it has addressed participant mobility issues with their Promotions Event, which awarded three spots within the 2024 LIV Golf season to the highest three finishers within the ultimate day. The highest-ranked participant on the Asian Tour order of benefit for the LIV-backed Worldwide Sequence, Andy Ogletree, additionally earned a LIV Golf spot for 2024. Nevertheless, these 4 spots didn’t symbolize sufficient merit-based turnover for the OWGR, which has additionally raised issues about LIV Golf being a closed league with no clear efficiency pointers for figuring out who will get to play or signed by the league.
LIV Golf has additionally lengthy said that it believes it doesn’t have to fulfill the entire said standards for his or her factors to earn occasions, which is set by a vote of the the OWGR board, which incorporates representatives from the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and the foremost championship governing our bodies. PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, outgoing European Tour Group CEO Keith Pelley and Federation of PGA Excursions head Keith Waters, all members of the board, recused themselves from the consideration of LIV Golf’s software.
Whereas the OWGR declined LIV Golf’s software, Dawson has stated LIV Golf gamers must be acknowledged by the system if LIV Golf can clear up the 2 main problems with turnover and qualification.
Norman, nonetheless, advised gamers what has lengthy been clear: in any case this time, even awarding factors to LIV Golf tournaments would do little to boost their gamers’ rankings.
“Even when LIV Golf occasions have been instantly awarded factors, the OWGR system is designed such that it will be functionally unattainable so that you can regain positions near the summit of the rating, the place so a lot of you belong,” Norman wrote.
In a simulated model of the OWGR that features LIV Golf occasions, tournaments would solely award within the space of 20-25 factors to the winner, which is above many DP World Tour occasions however nicely beneath each PGA Tour occasion. The factors would stay successfully in the identical band all through the season, in the end hurting gamers much more.
Nevertheless, two of the 4 main championships have proven a willingness to incorporate LIV Golf gamers whose efficiency is exemplary, with the Masters and PGA Championship each inviting Joaquin Niemann to compete of their 2024 championships. Niemann received the Australian Open final yr and has received two of the primary three LIV Golf occasions this season.
A number of gamers competing within the Saudi-owned league have gone public in saying that they have been assured by LIV that they’d ultimately obtain OWGR factors to maintain their rating place and assist them earn alternatives to compete in main championships. With out these factors, they now don’t have any clear path into all 4 majors. The Masters invitations gamers based mostly on standards however can add gamers at their discretion. The identical is true for the PGA Championship and US Open, which has open qualifying together with the Open Championship, which additionally boasts an Open Qualifying Sequence of tournaments on varied excursions.
Gamers who signed with LIV Golf knew that they have been unlikely to get OWGR factors in a well timed method, if in any respect, and have been risking that they’d be largely ineligible to compete within the majors transferring ahead. With LIV Golf withdrawing its software, that threat turns into a everlasting actuality as long as these gamers proceed to compete on LIV Golf and don’t qualify or win elsewhere.
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