Greg Norman introduced LIV’s abandonment of its quest for OWGR factors.
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LIV Golf doesn’t need OWGR factors anymore.
On its face, Tuesday’s announcement got here as a jarring, gorgeous, wait-what reversal. Since the league’s inception in 2022 there’s nothing LIV has needed extra than world rating factors. With factors would come legitimacy. With factors would come pathways to main championships. With factors would come the flexibility to raised lure execs from different excursions. With factors would come an opportunity for world golf domination.
But there it was, a letter from Norman, LIV’s commissioner, telling his gamers that he doesn’t see a path ahead for LIV and the OWGR. The wording was dramatic: “A resolution which protects the accuracy, credibility, and integrity of the OWGR rankings no longer exists.”
In equity, it’s nonetheless most likely too easy to say LIV doesn’t need factors. If you informed Greg Norman that tomorrow you have been gonna cease by his home with a pair ribeyes, a bottle of cab and a full basket of world rating factors for his LIV gamers, I feel he’d soar on the alternative. But when the OWGR denied LIV’s newest bid just a couple of months in the past, their response signaled that the trail to factors may take some time — and maybe require a format change to get there. So, a couple of months after the OWGR rejected LIV, LIV has determined it’ll reject the OWGR.
Is there a component of “you-can’t-fire-me-I-quit” to this method? For positive. Norman made it clear in his letter that even when LIV have been awarded factors quickly, his gamers’ rankings have deteriorated a lot that their strengths of area would look far worse than they deserved. There’s no rapid path to factors anyway. They don’t have a ton of leverage within the dialogue. But LIV’s transfer right here counts on the truth that they nonetheless have some leverage within the type of its prime gamers and their potential exclusion from prime occasions. And so LIV is taking a stand. Norman and Co. are having a bet. And they’re exhibiting indicators that in the event that they don’t get their means, they’ll fortunately burn golf’s establishments to the bottom.
THERE’S A WAY THAT NORMAN’S PLOY COULD WORK.
After all, each golf fan is aware of that just about each one in every of LIV’s prime execs is best than his world rating. Joaquin Niemann is among the hottest gamers on the planet and is caught at OWGR No. 76. Bryson DeChambeau may very well be a menace at a number of majors this yr however has dropped to No. 182. Dustin Johnson (No. 266) and Talor Gooch (No. 476) have plummeted, too. You get the concept. Did golfers take this danger leaving for LIV? Yes. Does LIV’s newness and format current comprehensible delays in getting factors? Yes. But even PGA Tour gamers acknowledge that the rankings don’t symbolize actuality.
“Obviously now when you have a huge chunk of really, really good players that are not getting any ranking points, it definitely devalues that ranking,” Viktor Hovland stated this week at Bay Hill.
“They’re just sort of unranked right now, but to me, I do believe they’re definitely top-ranked players in the world,” Xander Schauffele stated of prime LIV execs.
“I think the World Rankings has a very particular set of criteria, and I don’t know if broken is the right word, but I think that there’s been so much uncertainty and change in the last couple years that it’s inevitable that things need to be updated or things need to be changed,” Patrick Cantlay added.
They weren’t unified on an answer, however they acknowledged that one thing is clearly amiss.
And whereas there’s a phase of golf followers which might be blissful to see LIV defectors shut out of the majors, the bulk would favor to see the highest execs doing battle on the largest levels. Because the majors have lengthy relied on the OWGR to construct out their fields, the OWGR stays golf’s most related rating system. Those two issues at the moment are in direct battle — the very best fields and the reliance on the OWGR. Something has to present. That’s a part of Norman’s guess, then: The OWGR wants LIV greater than the opposite means round.
LIV execs have pitched the concept of majors constructing their very own exemption class for the league. Perhaps the highest 12 rivals on LIV may earn berths into the 4 majors, they’ve stated. Perhaps greater than that. There are different artistic methods to get across the OWGR problem, too — the Masters and PGA Championship have already prolonged invitations to Joaquin Niemann — however time will inform how a lot the majors assume they want the likes of talented-but-not-OWGR-qualified execs like Talor Gooch, Louis Oosthuizen and Dean Burmester. Norman’s ploy doesn’t assure something besides an acceleration and readability to that dialogue. With the OWGR choice not in limbo the majors can’t say that they’re just ready for that call. They’ll be compelled to take a stand by hook or by crook. They’ll prioritize LIV guys getting in or they’ll let ’em fall out.
NORMAN’S PLAN COULD ALSO FAIL.
After all, the identical individuals who rejected LIV’s OWGR utility are those who would resolve LIV execs’ main eligibility. The OWGR consists of seven members. Three of ’em are aligned with the PGA Tour and DP World Tour and recused themselves from LIV’s utility. The remaining 4 are reps from the 4 majors. Will their occasions acknowledge LIV extra formally than the OWGR?
Golf’s establishments don’t appear overly keen on LIV however appear open to the concept of together with its gamers in future competitions. During the final LIV choice, OWGR chairman Peter Dawson went out of his strategy to depoliticize the announcement.
“We are not at war with them,” Dawson told the AP. “This decision not to make them eligible is not political. It is entirely technical.”
He additionally signaled a future alternative for LIV’s inclusion — a chance they’ve since rejected.
“Dustin Johnson, Sergio Garcia, of course they should be in the ranking,” he stated. “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.”
So time will inform. In granting Niemann his Masters berth, Augusta National reps didn’t even point out his LIV efficiency. The Open Championship has reiterated its dedication to the OWGR as a qualifying standards. And whereas Norman insisted LIV is in shut contact with representatives from every of the majors, to this point not one of the majors have indicated any substantial curiosity in a LIV exemption class. (The closest got here from R&A head Martin Slumbers, who told Sports Illustrated on Wednesday that they’d thought-about it earlier than stepping into a unique path.)
All of this places LIV management in a tough place. Based on purses and contracts it’s not as if its gamers are anxious about paying for his or her subsequent meal. But the league had promised LIV signees that factors have been coming quickly — but the vast majority of their area now has no in-league path to the sport’s largest occasions. Although LIV boasts sufficient current main champs and top-ranked execs to get roughly a dozen execs in every of this yr’s majors, that quantity will inevitably drop within the coming years if nothing adjustments.
That’s the true subtext of LIV’s choice, then: They’re escalating and accelerating their war with the establishment. In some methods LIV has been at war with the establishment since its inception, however its quest for factors had nonetheless demonstrated an curiosity in carving out a spot inside skilled golf’s ecosystem. This represents a break from that quest. It hardly looks like a coincidence that this newest choice comes within the wake of the PGA Tour’s multi-billion greenback funding cope with the Strategic Sports Group and the establishment of its new for-profit company. It hardly looks like talks are wherever shut between the PIF and the PGA Tour.
So LIV is doubling down, whether or not as a result of it’s their best choice or its solely choice. Either means they’re telling the golf world that they’re carried out adapting to the prevailing entities and that the prevailing entities should now adapt to them as a substitute.
Now we’re left to attend and see how they do adapt — or observe what occurs in the event that they don’t.
