The fifth season of LIV Golf kicked off this week under the lights in Saudi Arabia. But the focus wasn’t on golf.
The week started with additional questions about the departures of Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed. While the reaction to the departure of two big names highlighted the new reality of the competition, something else sucked up all the oxygen during the leading group’s season opener.
The official World Golf Rankings board announced this on Tuesday that she had accepted LIV’s membership application and that the league starts earning points this week in Riyadh. However, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows for the Saudi Arabia-backed league. Although LIV will receive points starting this week, the OWGR board noted that points will be limited to top-10 finishes and ties.
“This has been an incredibly complex and challenging process and we have spent a tremendous amount of time and energy on it in the seven months since LIV Golf submitted their application,” OWGR chairman Trevor Immelman said in a statement. “We fully recognized the need to rank the best men’s players in the world, but at the same time needed to find a way to do so that was fair to the thousands of other players competing on other tours that operate under established meritocratic pathways.”
The OWGR board’s decision loomed over LIV’s season opener as players and CEO Scott O’Neil grapple with its implications.
Speaking to Al Arabiya English at LIV Riyadh, O’Neil tried to break down a decision that opens the way to major championship participation for LIV players, but is still not good enough in their eyes.
“Can you imagine the PGA committee? [Tour]the head of the DP World Tour, and so, from our perspective, what a great vote of confidence for them to say, ‘Okay, we’ll give you points,’” O’Neil said.
“On the other hand, it’s a bit unprecedented. You know, every other event that they run in the hundreds of tours that they sanction, only 15 percent of the field gets no points if there are no cuts. In our case, that’s 82 percent of the field. So that didn’t feel great, you know. And I hope that this is the first step of many steps up the stairs to where we will actually be ranked and recognized, where we should actually be, what I think is the biggest, deepest, most talented and strongest power of the world’s international golf field.”
Jon Rahm echoed O’Neil’s sentiment, but believes LIV isn’t getting the respect it deserves given the talent in the league.
“Yes, it is fantastic that we are getting points,” Rahm said on the LIV Golf broadcast. “It’s fantastic that we are being recognized in some way.
“Having said that, I don’t like that we’re not being treated the same as any other tour. It seems like the rules that are in place don’t really apply to us as only ten of us get points. It doesn’t seem fair. The small fields that are there during the year, their players get full points.”
Talor Gooch, who has been a member of LIV since its inception, believes the league continues to be treated unfairly due to its status as a disruptor in professional golf.
“I don’t think the right thing has been done, which is no different than what we’ve experienced here at LIV over the last four or five seasons,” Gooch said. “It will be interesting to see how it plays out. But I think anyone who says the right thing has been done and the fair thing has been done is out of step with the reality of things.”
However, another original LIV Golf member had a different opinion on the OWGR’s decision.
Peter Uihlein was quick to compare the number of points LIV is earning this week with the DP World Tour’s Qatar Masters and sees it as a clear step towards further legitimacy for the competition.
“Maybe I’m one of the few who like it,” he said. “We have more points in the world rankings today than we did yesterday. I saw that the winner this week gets 23 points. In Qatar he gets 20. In my eyes we are the second best tour in the world right now. Obviously there are things that probably need to be worked out with the top ten or whatever, but the reality is we have more points today than we did yesterday. I’m all for it.”
If Chris Solomon of No Laying Up pointed out Xthe player who finishes sixth at LIV Riyadh will receive the same number of points as the player who finishes 20th at this week’s Waste Management Phoenix Open. Considering the size of the fields and the quality of players in each field, LIVs apparently did quite well.
Elivis Smylie won in his LIV debut, taking home the 23.03580 projected OWGR points for first place. Bryson DeChambeau, meanwhile, finished T17 and left Saudi Arabia without an OWGR boost and with questions about his LIV future still up in the air as the competition heads to Australia.
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