As Jon Rahm reclaims the Official World Golf Rankings #1 spot and Cam Smith slides down to #5, Matt Adams discusses how he believes LIV Players deserve to be ranked… and how they can achieve that.
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As Jon Rahm reclaims the Official World Golf Rankings #1 spot and Cam Smith slides down to #5, Matt Adams discusses how he believes LIV Players deserve to be ranked… and how they can achieve that.
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Data Golf has a system where they include LIV golfers and it seems right to me. I see no reason that the OWGR can't figure out a way to incorporate the LIV format as is since Data Golf already has.
The only explanation to me is that the "golf ecosystem" is trying to blackball the Saudi's.
Also why should LIV have to fundamentally modify their product to meet criteria? They aren't and have never been trying to be tournament golf, they are trying to be a team golf league… which has never been done. Why stifle innovation in the format of the game? That's exactly what forcing LIV to fit into a traditional tournament format would do.
Additionally the majors could solve this themselves if they would by granting 5 exemptions per major to LIV golfers based on LIV's own internal Order of Merit. Then the PGA Tour could do traditional tournament golf, LIV could be "Golf but louder", and the two could settle the "who's better" argument in the majors.
Any golf ranking system that has Dustin Johnson out of the top 50 is a complete joke. He's arguably a top 10 player right now. OWGR has lost all credibility.
Your are correct in that world ranking points have not been approved or denied by OWGR. It usually takes 18-24 months from application to get a decision on how if they get points or not. From my research, the following criteria are not being met by LIV (official criteria is not published, so I could have been misled, and probably have)
1. Average field size of 100 golfers
2. Something like a Monday qualifier for most tournaments
3. A clear promotion path into the tour (i.e. something corresponding to the KFT tour Q-school , not whoever takes the PIF money)
4. A clear relegation path out of the tour (i.e. top 125+ recent winners keep cards, others fall back to KFT). LIV will not (and cannot) kick someone out who is on a multi year contract who has a terrible year.
5. A cut in most tournaments
The other thing is with the changes in OWGR made last year, small fields don't get big points anymore. The tour championship and Sentry didn't break 40 points for the winner this year, where they would hit mid 50s in the past. The bottom 50% of the LIV roster, to be blunt, sucks. They will get points for a low level PGA tour event, especially if their inclusion into OWRG is delayed to the point where their strokes gained numbers are impaired.
I'm updating this a few hours after my original post…..I totally spaced the 72 vs 54 hole thing. I think that can be handled by giving 3/4 points
OWGR job is to rank players not tell them how to play golf . If they can't do it then they are obsolete.
Also it's not just LIV players being shafted . The whole OWGR is weighed so heavily in favour of top of PGAT it has become impossible to advance from say DPWT. Whole thing is a joke now and has JM fingerprints all over it . PGAT is completely destroying world golf for benifit of American tour .
The world rank system is too slow, too biased, to be credible.
Most people like you said don’t know enough because they don’t care enough.
LIv should it have to meet archaic criteria. Why should that criteria have to be met? It’s that criteria holding golf back from being a. Enter product.
Even if LIV inroduces some 72-hole events, with included cut, to gain WGR points for its players, their model is still clearly very different to the other tours. Presumably they will be obliged to play their entire quotient of players on their books. This will still mean fields of around half the size of regular events AND will involve the SAME players each time. Tournaments elsewhere will not be hosting the same players each time and, while the overall quality of opposition may not compare, the sheer quantity has to be a big factor.
The upper echolon LIV players are surely going to be making the cut most of the time, which will make it harder for the lesser lights to gain any points whatsoever. With the amount of opposition in the final 2 rounds being about half of that on other tours, it is hard to see how the points allocation can be of similar amount or structure.
One of the biggest issues is that Greg Norman promised his players that they’d get OGWR points immediately, and then proceeded to try bullying his promise into existence. They’ve applied for points. In another year or so, which is the norm, they’ll get an answer. He’s dumb for making a promise he couldn’t and didn’t keep, and LIV players are dumb if they believed him. The process will play out, and then when it has, we can debate the merits of the result. Should they get points? Probably. But how do you rank players one the same scale who are primarily playing two significantly different competitive formats? I wouldn’t know how. Does Indy car demand their drivers be ranked on the NASCAR rankings list? How would you do it?
LIV wants to dictate from a bully pulpit without going through the process. They applied and feel they should be granted immediately
Saying that LIV needs to find out the criteria and meet the criteria fails to recognize that the criteria is hugely biased towards the PGA tour and became more so with the changes in 2022. This is highly political and has been so since the beginning. It is the PGA’s only weapon against LIV. The OWGR already awards full points to some events which have no cut some with small fields and some which only have 54 holes. This tells me that there is nothing sacred about these things. OWGR should be determined by Tours, Majors, Industry (equipment manufacturers), media and the players themselves.
The OWGR system was known by all prior to LIV starting up. LIV knew all the requirements. If they choose not to meet them, then no OWGR in the current format. Now if OWGR decides to modify or create a system that can accommodate the LIV and PGA format, it is completely up to them.
Unfortunately, aside from Tiger and Rory none of the others move the needle. Boring personalities that are great golfers but not a must watch. Rahm can win 10 in a row yet have no impact on the viewing audience. Give us back Phil ,Brooks,Dustin , Patrick and Bryson.
If LIV Golf didn't happen, Jon Rahm would have only won 1.3 Million last week not 3+ Million. Enough said!!!
I don't see how people like Matt Adams and the other fellow in this podcast can argue in favor of conceding to LIV's demands when they admit to being ignorant of how OWGR operates.
Rankings are a joke
Just rank the best players in the world keep it simple regardless of your
Why didn't the Saudis with all their money start regular 72 hole events with a top 70 cut line ? Pay like they do now and attract many more PGA players.
The world ranking system is a joke.
Don't blame OWGR. All the guys that took the guaranteed money, fewer tournaments, not cuts, you give up the OWGR. Seems fair to me. Be happy with your guaranteed money.
Saw the leaderboard today for the Honda Classic. I thought I had accidentally logged into the Korn Ferry Tour. A lot of chaff and not much quality wheat left.
Well, with what's going on in the courts lately the OWGR is the least of their worries as it's looking very gloomy for their long term existence.