18Apr
LIV Golf’s quest to get accredited by the Official World Golf Ranking brings the biggest power players in the sport inside the same battle—with enormous implications
LIV Golf made a curious decision in the past week to partner with a little-known golf tour that hasn’t staged events in years. LIV, though, had a clear goal in mind: taking a backdoor approach to getting world ranking points that its players covet, but currently don’t receive.
The top golfers who have defected from the PGA Tour for LIV are making loads of money, but one thing they aren’t getting are those points, which are crucial to making even more cash and playing in golf’s major championships. So far, the secretive body that grants ranking points, the Official World Golf Ranking, isn’t awarding them for LIV events.
For the warring golf circuits, there’s now a crucial issue: should LIV’s results be considered as part of the body’s complex and previously closely guarded formula for approving new tours?
LIV’s deal with the MENA Tour, a developmental circuit in the Middle East and North Africa, was such an odd maneuver that it prompted the OWGR to issue a highly unusual statement saying that LIV still wouldn’t get in immediately.
“Only after the review is complete will a decision be made on awarding points,” OWGR said. The struggle between the PGA Tour and its Saudi-owned rival LIV Golf for control of the sport is playing out not just on golf courses, but across all three branches of the American government. It’s also being fought around a little-known entity based in Surrey, England, whose statisticians churn out a weekly pecking order for the best golfers on the planet.
