Why LIV Golf suddenly abandoned its chase for OWGR points

LIV Golf doesn’t want OWGR points anymore.

On its face, Tuesday’s announcement came as a jarring, stunning, wait-what reversal. Since the league’s inception in 2022 there is nothing LIV has wanted more than world ranking points. With points would come legitimacy. With points would come pathways to major championships. With points would come the ability to better lure pros from other tours. With points would come a chance for world golf domination.

But there it was, a letter from Norman, LIV’s commissioner, telling his players that he doesn’t see a way forward for LIV and the OWGR. The wording was sensational:
“A determination which secures the precision, validity, and keenness of the OWGR rankings now not exists.”

In reasonableness, it’s still likely as well straightforward to say LIV doesn’t need focuses. In the event that you told Greg Norman that tomorrow you were gonna halt by his house with some ribeyes, a bottle of cab and a full wicker container of world positioning focuses for his LIV players, I think he’d hop at the opportunity. But when the OWGR denied LIV’s most recent offered fair many months prior, their response signaled that the path to focuses might take a whereas — and maybe require a format change to urge there. So, a number of months after the OWGR rejected LIV, LIV has chosen it’ll dismiss the OWGR.

Is there an component of “you-can’t-fire-me-I-quit” to this approach? For beyond any doubt. Norman made it clear in his letter that indeed in the event that LIV were granted focuses before long, his players’ rankings have weakened so much that their qualities of field would see distant more awful than they merited. There’s no quick way to focuses besides. They do not have a ton of use within the discourse. But LIV’s move here tallies on the truth that they still have a few use within the form of its best players and their potential avoidance from beat occasions. And so LIV is taking a stand. Norman and Co. are making a wagered. And they’re appearing signs that in the event that they don’t get their way, they’ll cheerfully burn golf’s teach to the ground.

THERE’S A WAY THAT NORMAN’S PLOY Seem WORK.

After all, each golf fan knows that about each one of LIV’s beat stars is way better than his world positioning. Joaquin Niemann is one of the most sultry players on the planet and is stuck at OWGR No. 76. Bryson DeChambeau seem be a risk at a few majors this year but has dropped to No. 182. Dustin Johnson (No. 266) and Talor Gooch (No. 476) have plunged, as well. You get the thought. Did golfers take this hazard clearing out for LIV? Yes. Does LIV’s novelty and organize show justifiable delays in getting focuses? Yes. But indeed PGA Visit players recognize that the rankings do not speak to reality.

“Obviously presently once you have a colossal chunk of truly, really good players that are not getting any positioning focuses, it certainly depreciates that ranking,” Viktor Hovland said this week at Inlet Slope.