As the golf world prepares for the Open Championship this Thursday through Sunday at enchanting Royal Portrush, the news off the course has centered on LIV Golf’s renewed effort to be recognized by the Official World Golf Ranking.
To which I say: We’re still talking about this? Let ’em in.
Put aside your warranted critiques about the glacial “merger” that will never actually happen or your anger toward LIV’s financial backers. There needs to be a better way to compare the 10th-best guy on the PGA Tour to the 10th-best guy on LIV.
For anyone just joining us, the players who left the PGA Tour to sign with LIV Golf were suspended indefinitely by the former. They didn’t mind this at the time, what with the dollar signs clouding their eyes.
But some of these players felt deceived because Greg Norman and/or a Saudi PIF official promised they would still get ranking points and access to the four major championships.
The Masters, PGA Championship, U.S. Open and Open Championship never banned LIV outright, but if your name wasn’t Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka or Jon Rahm, qualifying for those majors became a whole lot harder since world ranking is one of the main pathways in. And the OWGR rejected LIV’s initial application for points for their events.
At issue is the idea that LIV has a closed-shop model, with most players getting in by invitation and precious few advancing through a promotion event. Speaking in Northern Ireland this week, DeChambeau seemed to recognize that obstacle.
“I would say that there are definitely grounds upon which we can change some things,” he said. “Definitely relegation for sure, more pathways into LIV. I think a global tour, more association to a global tour would be great for a feeder system into LIV. Those things, I think, could help quite a bit.”
LIV is partnered with the Asian Tour, for what that’s worth. Perhaps the league plans to expand that partnership in a more visible, egalitarian way if it thinks it has a chance at ranking points now.
Another of the more reasonable complaints regarding LIV and the rankings is the length of the events. To win a PGA Tour event, you have to card the best score over 72 holes; to win on LIV, you just need to be ahead after 54.
The solution there is obvious to me: Whatever the OWGR board feels the strength of field is at a LIV event, reduce it to 75 percent of the total. It’s basically playing 75 percent of a PGA Tour event. But we have to stop pretending that Rahm and Koepka and the others are playing zero golf, sitting on their couches those 14 weeks a year.
Above all else, my argument for a single, standard, all-inclusive ranking system is less about what’s fair and more about what’s practical. It’s most pertinent four weeks a year, including this one. Major championships are at their best when the best players come to play.
Consider: Golf fans and media were overwhelmingly against LIV Golf at its outset. Many wanted the defectors to be punished in any way possible, ranking points included. In the past year or two, that’s softened considerably, and multiple alternative ranking systems — from the Universal Golf Rankings to Sports Illustrated’s own proprietary ranking — have popped up to fill the void.
By the way, PGA Tour players want a return to normalcy, too.
“I think having the ability to rank all the golfers in the world is really important,” World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler said this week. “When you have guys always playing a different schedule, it can be very hard to rank player versus player.”
And since we know the PGA and LIV aren’t about to combine their schedules into one glorious mess, the next-best thing is for the OWGR to treat LIV like a professional golf league.
