The First Cut crew discusses the end of LIV’s bid for OWGR points.
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ABOUT THE SHOW: The First Cut brings you everything you need to know in the world of professional golf. Nearly every day Rick Gehman, Kyle Porter, Mark Immelman, Greg DuCharme, Sia Nejad and Patrick McDonald bring you the best analysis in the game. From DFS to betting previews, interviews and recaps… everything golf is on the table when you listen to The First Cut.
Liv golf has ended its bid for owgr points they have withdrawn their application uh Greg Norman sites quote the lack of willingness to work with the league and Patrick it seems as if the path forward for Liv go is going to be essentially to uh negotiate individually
With each one of the major championships to see if they can get the qualifying criteria moved further away from owgr points and closer to uh an X number of guaranteed spots for LIF golf I I got to catch my breath really quick um I think both can be true in this
Instance of you know Greg Norman said they they made quote enormous efforts I mean that’s just blatantly false I would say when owgr they had two main bugaboos with Liv uh the main one was the close shop and Li came to them and said yeah we only have six guys
Under contract that are going to be in the league no matter what then they come back they’re like actually it’s 14 sorry about that miscalculation Greg du talked about math uh and then they’re like but but we’re doing live promotions we’re adding three spots for these qualifiers
The order of Merit winner great and then they come back and they bring in a new team they bring in Anthony Kim and it’s like okay are you really putting your best foot forward what they did do a really good job of Liv I would say is kind of the
Smear campaign against owgr you have Bryson out on every podcast you have Taylor gu who was a perfect I think poster child for this right their Champion their league league uh yearlong winner going on every podcast get a mic in his face and now you have the hottest
Mic in his face the hottest player in the world right the best player in the world doing the same inwa Neeman tongue and cheek criticizing the owgr who’s run by the major championships one of which is Augusta National one of which just gave him an invitation to their major
Championship after his victory that being said I think it is kind of it’s somewhat baffling that there’s a league out there with John ROM Dustin Johnson Brooks kepa Bryson Des Shambo Cameron Smith that isn’t receiving points but in the context of owgr in this the problem for Liv is we’re not
Talking about those guys we are talking about Taylor gu and how owgr points is a pathway to maor championships the best thing that happened to owgr in my opinion was Brooks kka winning the 2023 PGA Championship because if he doesn’t do that and if he doesn’t win a major
Championship this year the conversation around live and owgr is completely different cuz that would have been Brooks kep go Avenue to major championships so essentially the owgr has been unaffected by this so they can sit on their hands and sit back and watch the four events that matter the
Most to them the majors because who runs thegr the majors and invite players like oh I don’t know walk Neeman when they see fit so I think both sides didn’t put their best foot forward to tell you the truth the the interesting thing KP so there’s a
Well obviously there’s a lot here but the the the time aspect so this was um applied for by Liv in July of 2022 they were as Patrick alluded to denied uh initially in October of 20123 with some of that feedback that Patrick was going through we knew that it takes about 18
Months on average for kind of a decision to be made and and by then a lot of guys were going not going to have enough o wgr points it probably was wasn’t going to matter anyway unless things were going to be added retroactively um the other thing about this
Is uh not to confuse why Liv wants owgr Point Li I don’t think Liv cares or I don’t think Bryson dambo cares maybe Bryson does maybe he’s a bad example Brooks doesn’t care if he’s the fourth ranked player in the world or the 40th ranked player in the world or the 400th
Ranked player in the world he cares about being in the major championships and that was just the F of getting into the majors if you don’t have to deal with any of that and can still get your guys into Majors that that’s kind of the same end
Goal yes and which I mean I think sometimes we talk about the owgr like it’s been around since you know the 1800s it’s it’s it’s very new it’s it’s younger than I am it’s not even when was it uh constructed Craig like 1987 it definitely the late 80s I don’t
Know the exact year 86 86 okay and so it’s all made up anyway I think the the whole thing with with Liv saying oh we Bryson was on uh what’s the live podcast uh Fairway to Heaven Fairway to Heaven yeah there we go it’s like we fulfilled everything and
Somebody somebody posted like the list of requirements they had fulfilled like three of the seven like just very like ma basic just math like just know you don’t have a minimum of 75 players on average in each event like you you just don’t like I don’t what do you want us to do
Um so what has happened is that Liv has basically just ruined the owgr for everybody we had this nice like uniform global system was it perfect no there was always tweaks being made to it they made they just tweaked it two years ago right to to um adjust for they added
Strokes gain data which I think was a was a good tweak um so live just ruin like I haven’t you I don’t use the I use the owgr to site like hey Rory is the third number three part in the world or whatever but I don’t use it in my
Research I use Rick run.com or data golf right because I I don’t care about the owgr gr as it’s currently constructed I care about who who is actually the seventh best player in the world over the last six months like who is playing the seventh best golf or the fourth best
Golf or whatever and so congrats Liv you you ruined something else that we had that was good like they just they just and it’s annoying right because they just run rough shot over all these things and then they try to play the victim and you’re like dude
You’re just like you don’t care about any of this like you you are are the definition of like a selfish self-centered entity and you’re ruining all these things for everybody else and maybe that’s the definition of a disruptor and that’s what they would call themselves but it’s super frustrating as a golf
Fan they’re like the uh the person you meet that’s like hey I just tell it like it is like I’m I’m not a butthead I just tell it like it is I’m I’m I’m that type of person exactly exactly Greg the the major championships here uh have continued to stay out of The
Fray above everything as you know we kind of thought they were going to do they didn’t need to get down in the mud and roll around with with everybody and now they get to sit back and say okay well walk Neiman congratulations you’re in the Masters okay Walkin Neeman
Congratulations you’re in the PGA Championship they could do that and continue to invite who they believe um are the best players in the world because that’s that’s all it also behooves them to have the deepest Fields have the best fields in golf or they could write up you know top five live
Golfers top 10 top whatever they don’t have to but they they have again the option they’re not required to do anything they’re they continue to be in the best position it’s a single event each one of them is a single event and they don’t have to do anything they
Don’t want to do I mean they do have to do whatever is necessary to preserve their credibility and um but that at the same time matches their goal and their goal is to put the best field and put the best tournament on that they possibly can so when they feel that
Somebody like kauke and Neeman has earned a spot and earned an invitation they reserve the right to invite him um but they at the same time they also have had qualifications for these major championships that have been going on for a very long time and like the the official world golf rankings they’ve
Made minor tweaks when necessary but they’re they’re in a very different position because they’re not running a tour and they don’t have to contract players they don’t have to make promises to TV broadcast that they’re going to have certain players there um who are qualifying based on certain you know um merit-based
Accomplishments they don’t have to do that um especially the Masters so and the PGA Championship doesn’t even use official world golf rankings they use PGA Championship points they have their own criteria for allowing players into majors and that’s something they all can do if they deem that to be necessary so
You’re absolutely right Rick the the majors sit in a position that is um that’s well Above the Rest of the entities because they have the best events everybody wants to play in them and nobody is fighting about uh you know whether they should play or whether the majors do things the right
Way and there’s a couple of haulers here and there but those just seem to come from people who haven’t found their way in the tournament KP I mean th I don’t want to spark another I don’t want to spark like an hourong conversation here but something Greg just said um is is
Kind of the secret to all of this everybody wants to play the major championships everybody wants to be in them we have said before they could offer Z do in purses and get everybody to show up whenever they want yet here we are being driven by how
Much money they can make who’s going to give them the best opportunity to do that when if every event and I don’t know if this is possible is it possible that every event or 20 events could feel like major championships where you know we we talked about the PGA Tour not leaning
Into Legacy and whatever else that they had that could not just be tied to funds but I think it’s so fascinating that the two conversations we have are it doesn’t matter if the major championships paid anything every single guy would show up versus here’s where I need to go to make
Sure I’m getting as much money as possible yeah well it it’s what you’re describing is the and this is true in other sports too right like guys um go like they don’t they’re not playing in the playoffs like NFL and NBA playoffs for money they are signing with
A regular with a team in the regular season for the most part for for like with money as the primary objective so I I think it’s not that different if you think about regular season golf being the PJ tour and and the major champion ships being the sort of golf playoffs no
Offense to the to the FedEx Cup but I wrote about this in the normal normal sport newsletter today that just went out there’s such a disconnect Rick and I’m curious about your thoughts on this there’s such a disconnect between regular season and postseason being the major championships like those two
Because they run we’ve talked about some million times but because they’re run by such different organizations five different organizations six now if we’re if throwing seven if we’re throwing the European tour in there and live are running all these all these different things and there’s no there’s no connection between regular season and
Postseason you know in the NFL everything and the NFL is a bad example because it’s team sport it’s the most popular sport in the United States um it gets all the eyeballs whatever but everything is aligned in the NFL everything points for the Super Bowl from the draft to offseason training
Camp preseason EV everything that you’re pointing toward the Super Bowl and in golf it’s like well this is kind of over here and that’s over there and we’ve got Anthony Kim but we still want owgr points and we’ve got this YouTube competition to get into the Myrtle Beach
Tournament on the PGA tour no offense Patrick and you’re a big Myrtle Beach guy and nothing is aligned and I keep going back I mentioned in the newsletter today Rick your like World Tour there has to be some sort of alignment other wise we’re just going to be talking
About such separate entities all the time and and with absolutely no connection whatsoever and I think that’s why we feel so everything feels so like disconnected and jarring right now because it is disconnected and jarring right now my one of my biggest fears for golf for professional golf is and I’ve
Said this before is that it goes the way of professional boxing which is you are the WBO champ but you’re not the WBC champ uh you’re the you know whatever right there’s all these different entities and you’ve got to win all the belts to be the unified heavyweight
Champion of the world and it just diminishes everything along the way as opposed to having uh you know in North American Sports like you said KP everything pointings One Direction or in other systems globally uh a premier league a relegation a promotion that that all makes sense it points in the
Right direction it it allows for context at every single level as as opposed to just having four one-off events here couple of one-off events over there 25 in the middle that may or may not matter
16 Comments
It was never about OWGR points. The design of LIV never conformed to the OWGRs rules. It was abandoned before it started. Any of those guys on that tour should have read the OWGR rules before joining. Instead they listened to Greg who either didn't read it or didn't care and just said what they wanted to hear.
Golf becoming more decentralised is a GOOD thing not a bad thing….
Norman showing his root again?
But Taylor Gooch was already in some Majors until he got rolled with a last minute wording change.
So an organization led my Greg Norman just gives up and acts like an entitled teen when they don't get what they want after doing nothing to help their cause but to say "but we really want it!"…that tracks.
OWGR is a joke
You forgot Matthew Fitzpatrick, Patrick Cantlay they also think OWGR is a joke
Good move to give up on the OWGR. If you recall Phil said they would never get points and never would. The LIV guys will get in the majors one way or another. Just watch…
PGA Tour officials better pray their stars don’t win a major this year because if they do LIV is signing them for next year
OWGR is not just a joke, it is corrupt. Call it what it is – Majors Golf Ranking or PGA Loyalty Golf Ranking. It is being used as a hammer.
Regarding world golf rankings, 1) should the players and tours adjust to the existing OWGR criteria or 2) should the OWGR adjust to reflect the golf la escape. If the intention is the reflect their name (Official World Golf Ranking) then the obvious answer is 2. If it is any other objective then it is political (power). Of course there is a necessary adjustment period which we are in but time needs to be of the essence.
LIV didn’t ruin the OWGR. Is it a world golf ranking or is it not. Does it only work in a monopolistic system? The PGA Tour has always allowed players to play in other tours – why not LIV?
Imagine sticking up for the OWGR like these guys… group think knows no bounds
Patrick McDonald your the one doing a smear against Greg Norman when the owgr shows Gooch as anything lower than top 20 the owgr looses all credibility and is as dishonest as your cometary
The owgr is a tool of the pga to stifle creativity and competition. LIV is now world tour and the golfing world is much bigger than the pga tour and they hate LIV’s success 😊😊⛳️😇😉
If you want the same biased cbs takes, stay tuned.