The LIV claims to enter the World Golf Ranking
LIV Golf Tour players have made an open claim to the Official World Golf Ranking asking the organization to award points to player who are part of the tour.
The players of the LIV Golf Tour have come together to sign a letter requesting to obtain points for playing the tournaments of said organization. The letter has been addressed to the OWGR (Official World Golf Ranking), whose ranking list does not include any of the tournaments played on the circuit financed with Saudi money. In July, the organization that directs the official ranking was asked to add points for playing these tournaments, but they received no response.
In the letter, which has been signed by the league’s top stars, claims not obtaining points would lead golfers to not be able to play in very important tournaments, including the Olympic Games. Cameron Smith, Phil Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau are some of the names that signed the letter to preserve the “integrity” of the sport because they consider unfair that this tournament is an exception when it has many golfers at the highest level.
The golfers state that the LIV tournaments should be included in the OWGR points awarding system because not including that competition in this ranking “would be like leaving Belgium, Argentina and England out of the FIFA ranking”. The members of the Saudi backed league claim “As the athletes who are ranked, we depend on OWGR not just to qualify for the most important events, including the majors and Olympics, but to tell us where we stand among our peers,”
“To maintain trust, we urge you -- as one of the true statesmen of sports -- to act appropriately to include, on a retroactive basis, the results of LIV Golf events in OWGR’s ranking calculations,”, the letter adds. They comment that “Every week that passes without the inclusion of LIV athletes undermines the historical value of OWGR,” the players wrote. “As time goes by, LIV golfers automatically decline in the rankings.”
Being unable to earn points for the ranking and being left out of the big tournaments has frustrated the golfers who decided to go to the competition directed by Greg Norman. There are already members of the league who have suffered substantial drops down the rankings. A specific case has been exposed in the declaration of the golfers. Dustin Johnson was used as an example in the letter to the OWGR “Dustin Johnson was ranked 13th in the OWGR shortly before he announced he would play at LIV. He is now ranked 22nd. despite finishing eighth, third, second and first in the first four LIV events”, they comment in the letter.
To conclude, the golfers express in the letter the fact that “the fans deserve inclusive and correct rankings”. “Not including 48 of the best golfers in the world in the ranking would mean that fans are being denied what they deserve,” the letter concludes.