The LIV Golf League has withdrawn its utility for recognition from the Official World Golf Rating, LIV Golf CEO and commissioner Greg Norman informed gamers in a letter Tuesday.
The LIV Golf League, now in its third season, had been combating for OWGR accreditation since July 2022. World rating factors are used to find out exemptions and different invites into the 4 main championships by Augusta Nationwide Golf Membership, PGA of America, United States Golf Affiliation and The R&A.
“It’s now clear that one of the best ways ahead for LIV as a league and also you as LIV golfers just isn’t by the present rating system,” Norman wrote within the letter. “A decision which protects the accuracy, credibility, and integrity of the OWGR rankings now not exists. Now we have made monumental efforts to battle for you and to make sure your accomplishments are acknowledged throughout the current rating system. Sadly, the OWGR has proven little willingness to productively work with us.”
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The OWGR denied LIV Golf’s utility on Oct. 23. In a letter to Norman and LIV Golf COO Gary Davidson, OWGR chairman Peter Dawson stated the governing board had issues in regards to the lack of turnover amongst gamers in LIV Golf and the restricted pathways for different gamers to affix. It additionally cited issues about among the staff features of LIV Golf, which has gamers competing in particular person and staff competitions concurrently over 54 holes.
The LIV Golf League made some changes to its format to permit 4 new gamers to affix the league this season by a promotions occasion and an computerized qualifying spot by the Order of Advantage within the Worldwide Sequence on the Asian Tour. It wasn’t sufficient to fulfill the OWGR’s governing board.
“We aren’t at conflict with them,” Dawson informed The Related Press in October. “This determination to not make them eligible just isn’t political. It’s completely technical. LIV gamers are self-evidently adequate to be ranked. They’re simply not taking part in in a format the place they are often ranked equitably with the opposite 24 excursions and 1000’s of gamers making an attempt to compete on them.”
Golfers have not obtained world rating factors for his or her finishes in LIV Golf League occasions the previous three seasons, inflicting a lot of them to plummet within the rankings.
Solely 4 LIV Golf League gamers are ranked within the high 50 on the planet. Reigning Masters champion Jon Rahm, who jumped from the PGA Tour to the LIV Golf League in December, is ranked No. 3. England’s Tyrrell Hatton, who joined Rahm’s staff earlier than this season, is ranked seventeenth.
Former world No. 1 Brooks Koepka, who picked up his fifth main championship on the 2023 PGA Championship after tying for second on the Masters, is presently ranked thirtieth within the OWGR. Australia’s Cameron Smith, who gained the 2022 Open Championship at St. Andrews in Scotland, has fallen from second to fiftieth on the planet since becoming a member of LIV in August 2022.
“The rankings are structured to penalize anybody who has not performed repeatedly on an ‘Eligible Tour’ with the sector scores disproportionately rewarding play on the PGA Tour,” Norman wrote within the letter to LIV Golf gamers.
“Even when LIV Golf occasions had been instantly awarded factors, the OWGR system is designed such that it might be functionally unattainable so that you can regain positions near the summit of the rating, the place so a lot of you had been previous to becoming a member of LIV, and deserve to stay based mostly in your efficiency.”
Different LIV Golf gamers have watched their world rankings fall much more sharply. Talor Gooch, a three-time winner within the LIV Golf League and the circuit’s particular person champion final season, has dropped from thirty fifth to 476th on the planet since becoming a member of LIV in June 2022. Two-time main champion Dustin Johnson has fallen from thirteenth within the OWGR to 266th after becoming a member of LIV Golf in Might 2022. Six-time world champion Phil Mickelson has dropped from thirty eighth to 147th since becoming a member of LIV in June 2022.
“I believe it’s nearly out of date now,” Smith stated in October. “We have some guys out right here who’re taking part in among the finest golf on the planet they usually’re exterior the highest 100, 200 on the planet. It is fairly ridiculous.”
Norman stated the LIV Golf League would work with the governing our bodies of the 4 main championships to get extra of its gamers in fields. Chile’s Joaquin Niemann, ranked 76th on the planet, obtained a particular invitation to compete within the Masters after he gained the Australian Open on Dec. 3.
After choosing up his second LIV Golf League victory in Saudi Arabia on Sunday, Niemann stated he additionally obtained an invite from the PGA of America to compete within the PGA Championship in Might.
