‘Odd move:’ Rory McIlroy left with more questions than answers after LIV Golf’s substitution

LIV Golf’s latest move surprised many in the golf world, but left Rory McIlroy with more questions than answers.

On Tuesday, LIV Golf announced a surprise change to its competitive format by shifting all events to 72 holes with immediate effect. The move brings the breakaway more in line with the competitive structure of pro golf and should remove one of the barriers to entry into the official world golf rankings, which would provide LIV players with the world ranking points needed to gain entry into major championships.

However, McIlroy, speaking ahead of the HSBC Abu Dhabi 2025 Championship at Yas Links on Wednesday, is not confident the drastic change from the Rebel League will have the desired impact.

“I think it’s a strange move because I think with three rounds they could have gained ranking points,” McIlroy said. “I don’t think three laps versus four laps stopped them.

“It certainly brings them more in line with traditional golf tournaments than what we’ve all been doing. It brings them back to not really being a destructor and more in line with what everyone else is doing. But if they felt like they had to do that to get the ranking points, then I think they had to do that.”

There have been rumors for some time about LIV Golf’s switch to 72 holes, but it is no less a blast. The shift to 72 holes goes against the branding and initial selling points of the league, which aimed to streamline the viewing experience with a 54-hole, shotgun-start tournament that would make golf more palatable in an era of short attention spans. However, LIV could never overcome the fact that OWGR status gave the league access to play in major championships, and the league needs as many players as possible in the major fields to try to lure new players and capture a healthy portion of the pro golf market share.

While LIV’s shift to 72 holes could be the key to gaining entry into the OWGR, McIlroy isn’t sure how much that will help the league now, after years of declining players in the world rankings.

“I think it’s tough that you have the LIV guys and say they might get world rankings, but because their field strength is going to be so weak because a lot of the guys have already dropped down the rankings because they haven’t had ranking points for so long, I don’t know if the ranking points are really going to benefit them,” McIlroy said. “It will be interesting to see how it turns out.”

According to McIlroy, LIV currently has just three players – Tyrrell Hatton, Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed – in the top 50 of the world rankings. Jon Rahm is currently ranked 71st. However, a change to the OWGR algorithm three years ago could soften the blow to LIV. The OWGR calculated the field strength of a tournament solely based on its own rankings. But in 2022, the OWGR changed its algorithm to include a metric called ‘Strokes Gained World Rating’, which not only measures your finish in the tournament, but also the scores you score relative to the field you are in. GOLF’s Sean Zak wrote a detailed explanation of the statistic when the news broke in 2022.

Currently Scottie Scheffler, number 1 in the world leads the OWGR in Strokes Gained World Rating at 3,547. But DeChambeau, the 23rd ranked player, is second with 2,893. Rahm is fifth behind McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood. You can see how this change will help LIV Golf fields earn more points than if field strength were based solely on the OWGR rankings.

The OWGR position has been consistent on LIV Golf since the league first requested entry. The closed shop nature of the competition and the restrictions on competition (54 holes, no cuts, smaller field sizes) made it difficult to distribute points fairly.

Now that LIV has shifted to 72 holes and tried to make it more of an ‘open shop’ by offering more spots through the Promotions Event and International Series, the league’s path to the OWGR should be accelerated.

Only time will tell how this move changes things for the leading group and the fractured state of professional golf.

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