Tiger Woods breaks down how official world ranking points could pose a Major problem to LIV Golf

The building rivalry between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf has made its way to the 150th Open Championship at the Old Course at St. Andrews. With more than 20 LIV Golfers in the field at the Open, the tournament is pitting those who have jumped to the upstart, Saudi-backed league against their former PGA Tour compatriots for just the second time since the game began to split in two.

For now, this type of meet-up should persist between both sides of the rivalry — the only place that Dustin Johnson and Rory McIlroy will be competing against each other in the foreseeable future is at the majors. But because LIV Golf has yet to be accredited with world-ranking points, it’s unclear how long those that left the PGA Tour will be able to maintain their invites. Tiger Woods reflected on this possibility during his press conference ahead of the Open Championship.

“Who knows what’s going to happen in the near future with world ranking points, the criteria for entering major championships,” Woods said. “The governing body is going to have to figure that out. ” For decades, the PGA Tour has been the premier destination for the top players to compete in what you might call “regular season” golf.

But the biggest events of the year — the four majors — are not run by the PGA Tour. They are operated by four independent governing bodies: Augusta National (The Masters), the PGA of America (PGA Championship), the USGA (The US Open), and the R&A (The Open Championship). Players can qualify for the majors in several ways.

At the Masters for instance, all former champions are invited to play, as are the top 12 players from the previous year’s tournament, the top four finishers from the other three majors of the previous year, and several amateur champions from around the world, to name a few. But the biggest pool for qualifying comes from the Official Golf World Ranking . Should they not already be qualified by another exemption, the top 50 players from that week’s current ranking, as well as the top 50 players at the preceding year’s end, are all invited to tee it up at Augusta National.

While the specifics vary from major to major, all four rely at least in part on OWGR points to help determine which players are fit to make the field. The system ensures that the best players in the world are present at the biggest tournaments of the year. At least, it used to.

With the emergence of LIV Golf, suddenly some of the top players in the world are competing in events that don’t receive OWGR points. While the biggest names that jumped to LIV won’t see their rankings suffer for some time, younger players that have started their golf careers by joining LIV could go for a while without accruing OWGR points, thus making the majors largely unattainable. “Some of these players may not ever get a chance to play in major championships,” Woods said in his pre-Open press conference.

“That is a possibility. We don’t know that for sure yet. It’s up to all the major championship bodies to make that determination.

But that is a possibility, that some players will never, ever get a chance to play in a major championship, never get a chance to experience this right here, walk down the fairways at Augusta National. ” Some of the defining characteristics about LIV Golf that helped convince talented players to leave the PGA Tour might also wind up being the very factors that hold it back from getting accredited by the OWGR. LIV Golf events host just 48 players and do not have a cut.

While there are a few limited-field, no-cut events on the PGA Tour that award ranking points, they are few and far between. Further, LIV Golf is a closed system. While there are avenues for players at any level to meticulously play their ways onto the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, LIV Golf is invite-only.

LIV Golf also only plays 54 holes, and begins with a shotgun start. All of these differences from the greater golfing world make LIV unique, but the incongruity may also give the OWGR pause before awarding accreditation. While Woods didn’t say it directly, his comments highlighted the fact that the guaranteed money leaves a lack of true competition at LIV Golf.

“What these players are doing for guaranteed money, what is the incentive to practice?” Woods asked. “What is the incentive to go out there and earn it in the dirt? You’re just getting paid a lot of money up front and playing a few events and playing 54 holes. They’re playing blaring music and have all these atmospheres that are different.

” Different indeed. Just how tall these potential hurdles are should become apparent soon, as LIV Golf formally submitted their application for inclusion on July 6 . Even if LIV Golf is eventually allowed to award OWGR points, this period without accreditation could exact insurmountable damage.

For instance, strength of field is an important factor when determining how many OWGR points an event carries, and strength of field is determined by where competitors stand in — you guessed it — the Official World Golf Ranking. The highest-ranked players on the LIV Golf roster have already seen their rankings fall over the past two months, as the majors have presented their only opportunities to pick up points. If it takes years, rather than months, for LIV Golf events to begin carrying OWGR points, it’s possible that the collective rankings of their fields would be so weak that the ranking points it could award would be minimal — presenting a tee box Catch-22.

The final result could be just as Woods predicted: Young players that opt into LIV Golf over the PGA Tour or DP World Tour could potentially never get the chance to play at a major, even if their talent would normally earn them an invite on another tour. For now, we’re still a long way away from that, but the stage is set for the next chapter in LIV Golf’s shake-up of the sport. .