A lot has been made recently of players on LIV Golf being unable to earn Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) points.
Most fans and professional golfers agree that the OWGR is out of whack.
Jon Rahm is currently ranked fifth. Brooks Koepka and Cam Smith are the only other players on LIV ranked inside the top 80, with Koepka 36th and Smith 55th.
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Anyone that knows anything professional golf understands that Koepka, Smith, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Joaquin Niemann and likely others are far better than their ranking.
But with the OWGR’s decision to deny points to LIV, players have plummeted. That, in turn, will lead to many potential deserving players not qualifying for major championships.
Talor Gooch is one of them. Gooch has been very vocal about his distaste for the status quo, even though he also admitted he was not even attempting to qualify for the U.S. Open.
The X account, Flushing It, posted Sunday the hypocrisy of the Volvo China Open awarding OWGR points while LIV is left in the dark.
“Never has there been a more obvious example of the immediate issue LIV faces than today. The Volvo China Open was played for a $2.25 million purse and several players qualified for the PGA Championship at Valhalla. LIV Golf Singapore played for a purse more than 10 times that amount, with a bunch of the best players of this generation, but zero of them qualified for the PGA Championship from the event,” Flushing It wrote.
Phil Mickelson, one of the staunchest and loudest proponents of LIV Golf, then replied.
“What if NONE of the LIV players played? Would they be missed? What about next year, or the year after? At some point they will care and will have to answer to sponsors and television. FAAFO,” Mickelson responded.
The FAAFO of course stands for “F*** around and find out.”
Rumors surfaced that some LIV players contemplating jumping ship if the OWGR problem does not get resolved.
At the end of the day, most golfers’ goals are to win majors. You cannot win them if you cannot play in them.
The OWGR does not seem to have any inkling toward budging on this issue. Nor has there been any reported movement toward a deal between the PGA Tour and the Saudi Public Investment Fund, LIV’s beneficiaries.
So, Mickelson might just get his wish. We will all find out.
