OWGR shuns LIV Golf

The Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR) have made a decision to not award any world ranking points to LIV Golf and its current schedule of tournaments. The main issues identified by the OWGR in reaching this decision were:

• the lack of relegation for poor performing players;

• the fact that certain players have contractually guaranteed starts (e.g. playing captains such as Martin Kaymer and Lee Westwood); and

• the influence of the concurrent teams events on individual play and statistics (insinuating that players might alter their individual strategy/performance to benefit the standing of their respective team).

Interestingly, OWGR Governance Board members Keith Pelley (DP World Tour) and “Big Jay” Monaghan (PGA Tour), who have been vehemently opposed to LIV in the past, apparently recused themselves from the vote. There was significant social media reaction on both sides of the argument following the announcement by the OWGR. LIV players (including Bryson Dechambeau and Cam Smith) and supporters criticised the OWGR as being obsolete and irrelevant if their ranking system can’t find a way to assess players of the calibre of Smith, Dechambeau, Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka in events outside the majors. On the other hand, PGAT and DPWT sycophants (such as Sky Sports UK reporter Jamie Weier and Golf Channel correspondent Eamon Lynch) maintain that it is not the OWGR’s responsibility to adjust its ranking system to fit in with LIV, and the players who signed with LIV knew the risks when they left.

Ultimately, all of this bickering is nothing more than vested interests hashing out the politics of world golf. As golf fans, all we want to know from a ranking system is who are the best golfers in the world, regardless of the tour they play on. It is laughable to have a set of world rankings where Smith and Koepka (who have both won multiple times in the last 15 months including a major each) are both ranked lower than Tommy Fleetwood (who only won a limited field event at the Nedbank in South Africa). In our view, it seems totally incredible that, with all the advancements in statistics and analytics these days, that there is not some method where the OWGR can rank all players around the world sufficiently. The OWGR is simply creating a rankings void, and there are now bodies out there willing to fill the void. For example, Data Golf ranks players around the world on the basis of “Strokes Gained” as opposed to placings and prize money from accredited tournaments, and these rankings include LIV players. These alternate ranking organisations will overtake the OWGR if the current fiasco continues for long.

Is that the end? LIV’s next move…

There certainly will be implications of this decision from the OWGR for the “framework agreement” between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and LIV Golf. In our view, the framework agreement is on life support.

Greg Norman promised defecting players that LIV would receive OWGR points. For big dogs like Cameron Smith, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Bryson Dechambeau, the lack of OWGR points is less of an issue because they have exemptions into most, if not all of the Majors. But for less established players such as Joaquin Niemann, Mito Pereira and Taylor Gooch, it's a big issue because their road to qualifying for the Majors without OWGR points is virtually nonexistent. A number of other well-known players like Patrick Reed, Harold Varner III, Bubba Watson and Louis Oosthuizen, who all need points to qualify due to a lack of current exemptions, are also very dependent on the OWGR points. So LIV and Greg Norman won't be taking this decision lying down.

Big Jay and Keith Pelley reportedly recused themselves from the OWGR vote. We have no faith that this recusal was anything more than superficial window dressing to give the impression that they had no influence over the final decision. We don't believe for a second that the views of the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour weren't well understood and impressed upon the remaining voting members of the OWGR Governance Board.

The lack of a OWGR points awarded to LIV is likely to be a sticking point in landing the framework agreement. There has been scuttlebutt in the recent weeks that the PGA Tour and Big Jay have been shopping around and seeking to source additional investors into the new merged commercial entity created by the framework agreement. There is no way that the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) will have a bar of this. Readers will remember a key term of the merger announcement was that the PIF would be the sole financial investor in the new merged entity and that the PIF would have first right of refusal for any new investments and investors. If Jay is now trying to shift the goal posts, we can't see how the Saudis will accept this.

Our view is that Big Jay is making behind the scenes moves to try and squeeze out the Saudis and shut down LIV. The ranking points denial and sourcing of new investors to dilute the reliance on/exposure to Saudi investment are consistent with this view. The Americans are desperate to retain their monopoly hold on world golf, and the announcement of the merger and the framework agreement now appears like a calculated chess move by Big Jay to firstly, end the lawsuits against the PGA Tour that were sucking resources and money, and secondly, to buy himself some time to find alternative funding and investors.

It will be very interesting to see what the Saudis and LIV do next. Our guess is that they won't agree to any watering down of the terms that entrench the PIF as the sole investor under the framework agreement. Equally, it is likely to be a condition of moving forward with the framework agreement that LIV receives ranking points (with LIV likely to make some concessions or changes to its set up - this will help pave the way for a reversal of the current decision). This does not bode well for the likes of players like Graeme McDowell, Martin Kaymer and Lee Westwood who have played generally poor golf at LIV, but remained on tour due to contractual guarantees.

If the PIF does not get what it thinks it needs under the framework agreement, then we think the framework agreement is as good as dead. That means that the Saudis will have to make some decisions about what they do with LIV going forward. We see three options:

1. Double down and invest the money that they were going to put into the merged entity instead into improving and expanding LIV.

2. Keep LIV as it currently stands and save the money that would have been invested into the merged entity.

3. Wind up LIV and take a $2 billion loss and the embarrassment of walking away from world golf after two years of disruption.

If the framework agreement dies, our money is on Option 1, which would be the worst-case scenario for the PGAT and DPWT. If this option is engaged, a fresh round of big money offers will commence, and you can be assured that many big-name players that knocked back huge money last time won't do the same again. Names like Patrick Cantlay, Xander Shauffele, Cameron Young and Hideki Matsuyama will be finding it very hard to resist a move to LIV if the war breaks out again. So stay tuned!!! The framework agreement has to be landed by the end of 2023, or all bets are off. As Phil Mickelson has been tweeting out this week, there are a lot more moves left in this game of chess.

Results Recap

It was a huge week in golf, and Aussie golfers around the world were right up the pointy end of many leaderboards. Our recap of key results is below:

• PGAT: The Shriners - Tom Kim successfully defended his title at TPC Summerlin in Las Vegas. This made Kim the youngest player to defend a PGAT recognised title since 1912. Aussie Cam Davis was in contention early and finished T7 for his 8th Top 10 this year.

• LIV Golf Jeddah: Brooks Koepka took out his 3rd victory on the LIV tour by defending his Jeddah title in the Saudi Arabian desert. Talor Gooch finished second in the event which was enough to edge out Cam Smith for the overall season champion. Smithy was visibly unhappy with his performance and unfortunately didn’t have his best stuff this week. Also, disappointment for another Aussie, Jed Morgan, who will be relegated from the LIV tour next year.

• DPWT: Spanish Open - Despite being an unbackable favourite, Jon Rahm was unable to defend his Spanish Open title, finishing 9th before his home crowd. Frenchman Matthieu Pavon sealed his first DPWT win, taking out the event comfortably by 4 shots.

• LGPA: Buick Shanghai - Angel Yin prevailed in a playoff against World #1 Lilia Vu, with a crammed leaderboard on Sunday seeing 5 players tied for the lead at one stage. Aussies Minjee Lee and Karis Davidson performed strongly with Minjee leading during the 2nd round and Karis having a putt on 18 to join the lead late on Sunday. Alas, neither were able to win, finishing T13 and T8 respectively.

• Asian Tour: Macau Open - Rising Aussie sensation Min Woo Lee took out the Macau Open with a dominant display opening with a round of 62 and closing things out on Sunday with 63 to finish 2 shots ahead at 30 under. It’s good to see Min Woo in this type of form heading into the Aussie summer of golf which starts next month. Let him cook!!!

Schedule for the Week

Your golfing schedule for the week, and how to watch is below:

• LIV: LIV Golf Miami (Teams Championship) - Trump Doral (Miami, Fl), $50m purse (yes you read that right!!!!), Saturday 21/10 to Monday 23/10 - Coverage on 7+, starts 4am Saturday.

• PGAT: Zozo Championship - Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club (Chiba, Japan), $11m purse, Thursday 19/10 to Sunday 22/10 - Coverage on Foxtel & Kayo, starts 1pm Thursday.

• DPWT: Andalucia Masters - Real Club de Golf Sotogrande (Spain), $3.75m purse, Thursday 19/10 to Sunday 22/10 - Coverage on Foxtel & Kayo, starts 10pm Thursday.

• LPGA: BMW Ladies Championship - Seowon Valley Country Club (Korea), $2.2m purse, Thursday 19/10 to Sunday 22/10 - Coverage on Foxtel & Kayo, starts 1pm Thursday.

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Thanks again for your support and readership. We’ll be back next week with our debrief of LIV Golf Miami, but we’ll leave you with our “Shank of the Week”.