Fifty members of LIV Golf, the Saudi-backed tour which launched in June, have collectively issued a signed assertion requesting that LIV Golf tournaments earn factors in direction of the Official World Golf Rating.
As issues presently stand, LIV Golf tournaments don’t qualify for rating factors, that means that gamers who’ve solely taken half in LIV Golf occasions since its launch are slipping down the world rankings, leaving some in peril of lacking out on qualifying for the Majors and the Olympics.
The OWGR, which was first established in 1986, ranks gamers primarily based on their place in particular person tournaments over a rolling two-year interval, making an allowance for the power of the sphere. New rankings are calculated every week. In 2022, the outcomes from 23 international excursions factored into the world rankings, however haven’t included these from the LIV Golf Invitational Collection, which has to date held 5 occasions – one within the UK and 4 within the USA, with three extra as a consequence of happen this 12 months, and 14 tournaments deliberate for subsequent season.
The governing board of the OWGR is headed by chairman Peter Dawson, the previous chief government of the R&A, and has its headquarters on the European Tour Group’s workplaces at Wentworth Membership in Surrey. There are seven different administrators, together with representatives from the PGA of America, the Worldwide Federation of PGA Excursions, the USGA, the PGA Tour, Augusta Nationwide, the R&A and the DP World Tour.
In a letter addressed to Mr Dawson, the 50 signatories, together with world no.2 Cameron Smith and two-time Main winner Dustin Johnson, who has slipped down from thirteenth to twenty second on the planet rating since shifting to LIV Golf, have demanded that the outcomes of LIV Golf occasions be included in OWGR’s rating calculations on a retrospective foundation.
The letter insists that to depart LIV Golf outcomes out of the OWGR could be the equal to ‘leaving Belgium, Argentina and England out of the FIFA rankings’.
“Each week that passes with out the inclusion of LIV athletes undermines the historic worth of OWGR,” the assertion continues. “The case for LIV’s inclusion is powerful, however we now have issues that members of your governing board are conflicted and are preserving the OWGR from appearing because it ought to. 4 of the eight members have connections to the PGA Tour, which sadly views LIV Golf as an antagonist. Different members of the board have made unfairly harsh remarks about LIV, with one in every of them calling the organisation ‘not credible’.”
