{"id":3281,"date":"2025-07-18T14:02:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T14:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/3281\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T14:02:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T14:02:11","slug":"greg-norman-was-right-the-world-golf-rankings-mean-nothing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/3281\/","title":{"rendered":"Greg Norman was right, the World Golf Rankings mean nothing"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the three years since the first ball was struck in a LIV tournament, professional golf has become ever so slightly ludicrous. Two years ago, on these pages<\/a>, I asked what happens to the sixty-odd players who\u2019d signed for the LIV Tour, two years down the track, if whatever they achieve in the meantime counts for zilch? Because the OWGR are based entirely on ranked performances across the previous 24 months.<\/p>\n

Midway through 2025, my question can be answered: golf\u2019s world rankings system is an abject absurdity. Sure, hitching onto LIV Golf\u2019s travelling circus has done nada for the cultivation and maintenance of the technical skills and temperament required to compete at the highest level, for either Rahm or Smith, but that\u2019s a different argument.<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Credit: <\/p>\n

The crux of the issue is that LIV events are excluded from the OWGR. That\u2019s an unacceptable reality that should rightly cause offence to all professional players\u2013 it isn\u2019t just the LIV players this freezer treatment directly affects.<\/p>\n

LIV Golf management this week made a fresh application to the powers who control the OWGR for LIV events to be included in the calculation of world golf rankings. The OWGR meets annually at the British Open. LIV\u2019s previous application to OWGR was formally withdrawn last year.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an indivisible absurdity here. Players began defecting to LIV three years ago. There\u2019s been a series of LIV tournaments played and won. Hardly anyone truly pays attention, but regardless, it\u2019s wrong that those tournaments, and their entrants\u2019 results, are ignored for the purpose of measuring the performance of the thousands of players on the OWGR rankings list. That\u2019s not right.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s at least two fundamental problems with the intransigence of those in charge of the OWGR (including PGA Tour and European Tour representatives), regarding LIV players and their achievements in LIV tournaments.<\/p>\n

\"Jon<\/p>\n

Jon Rahm tees off at the British Open.Credit: AP<\/p>\n

Three years ago, the exclusion could be explained on the basis that assessments needed to be made as to what LIV is. Now the exclusion is churlish.<\/p>\n

LIV events are contrived, with their 54-hole, no cut, limited-field formats and confected atmosphere. It\u2019s a closed shop in terms of the players who compete. But by equal measure, results achieved in LIV tournaments must count for something. <\/p>\n

For players currently ranked inside the top 10 or top 50 of the OWGR, that ranking no longer means what it says because players like Rahm have their regular-season results excluded from all consideration. The best aren\u2019t the best any more. <\/p>\n

The last open door for LIV players outside the top 50 is via open qualifying events for the US Open and The Open championships.<\/p>\n

\"Australia\u2019s<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s Jason Day is playing in The Open championships on account of his ranking.Credit: AP<\/p>\n

In the future, it means major championships will exclude players who should rightfully be there. What then happens, the major tournaments will have their importance eroded. The passage for LIV players to play in The Open wasn\u2019t non-existent, but the path was so narrow it may as well be.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a matter of high farce that LIV-aligned players can\u2019t earn world golf rankings points.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say that a 54-hole LIV closed-shop event should be ranked on par with a PGA Tour event that has a field four times as deep. LIV is anything but cutthroat. It\u2019s not the best of anything.<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n

Yet, the 54-hole Big Easy Tour \u2013 a development tour in South Africa, composed largely of golfing unknowns \u2013 is recognised for OWGR purposes. Examined through the same prism, it\u2019s inexplicable that the LIV Tour isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

That contrived anomaly must be rectified; otherwise, professional golf and its major tournaments will continue to suffer credibility damage. By the status quo, Rahm might well be ranked outside the world\u2019s top 300 next year. Reckon that\u2019s accurate?<\/p>\n

The problem is that the highest-ranking officials from the PGA Tour and DP World Tour sit among those who decide which tournaments and tours are recognised for rankings purposes. Fair and reasonable? Or exclusionary and anti-competitive?<\/p>\n

I adore golf. What\u2019s happened in the sport these last three years troubles me greatly, though the legal gymnastics intrigue me.<\/p>\n

In the late 1980s, when Greg Norman was on a streak as the world\u2019s number one ranked golfer, he used to say regularly that the world rankings meant nothing. Four decades later, he\u2019s right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the three years since the first ball was struck in a LIV tournament, professional golf has become…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-3281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}