{"id":355499,"date":"2025-12-19T12:59:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T12:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/355499\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T12:59:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T12:59:15","slug":"owgr-chief-provides-update-on-liv-golfs-application","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/355499\/","title":{"rendered":"OWGR chief provides update on LIV Golf’s application"},"content":{"rendered":"

The chairman of golf’s global rankings body says “no decision” has been made yet over LIV<\/a>‘s latest application.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The PIF-backed breakaway has been locked out of the Official World Golf Ranking system since its launch in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n

An application with the body was lodged before the landmark 150th Open<\/a> at St Andrews and was ultimately rejected.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then OWGR chairman Peter Dawson said they were “not at war” with LIV and urged the league to make changes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But a furious Greg Norman<\/a> pulled the application altogether, saying in a letter to players the OWGR had shown “little willingness” to work with LIV.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Related:<\/p>\n

Norman’s replacement, Scott O’Neil, renewed LIV’s bid for OWGR accreditation before the first major of the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And it is understood that recent changes to LIV Golf will ultimately pave the way for the green light.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The headline change was LIV’s decision to abandon one of their founding principles<\/a> and shift to a 72-hole format instead of 54.\u00a0<\/p>\n

LIV are now enforcing relegation and there are more opportunities to earn exemptions into the league via the International Series.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"Greg <\/p>\n

Greg Norman<\/p>\n

“We found out right before everyone else did,” OWGR chairman Trevor Immelman told Golf Channel<\/a> of the LIV changes.<\/p>\n

“Scott O’Neil let us know that they were going to make the change to 72 holes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I guess they feel like they will be evolving. Their league is going to be evolving.<\/p>\n

“They are going to be playing 72, fields are going to be growing and so he gave us the heads up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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“For us, the board has been working hard and super involved in checking the application they put in in June.<\/p>\n

“We have been working really closely with LIV to make sure we handle this in the appropriate fashion with as much integrity as possible.<\/p>\n

“Dialogue has been back and forth, and constant and in a great spirit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I have enjoyed getting to know Scott O\u2019Neil, he is a passionate guy, passionate about the LIV Golf league.<\/p>\n

“While there is no decision yet, we will have to see what happens in the future.”<\/p>\n

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What has Scott O’Neil said about LIV Golf’s OWGR pursuit?<\/p>\n

In contrast to his predecessor, O’Neil has remained largely out of the limelight and offered few interviews.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But at the beginning of the month, O’Neil opened up on a number of topics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chief of which was LIV’s pursuit of OWGR recognition.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said he was hopeful a decision would be made before LIV begin their fourth full campaign next February.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We are working very closely with [chairman] Trevor Immelman and the board of OWGR,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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“It’s likely that will have an impact at some point.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We are having conversations with Trevor, who is doing an extraordinary and difficult job towards a solution that we hope to have in place by next season.<\/p>\n

“There are a whole host of things we are talking through.”<\/p>\n

O’Neil also said he was “open” to working with the PGA Tour<\/a> and DP World Tour.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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But, like his counterparts in the United States and Europe, appeared to indicate he would solely be focusing on LIV.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pressed on a potential unification in the men’s game, O’Neil said: “Yes I think we will need to create more playing experiences and opportunities with the PGA Tour.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I think there’s real opportunity, but I am focused on LIV Golf and taking the sport around the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I think that we are all smart enough to figure out that we can also create bigger platforms to have some fun and grow this game together.<\/p>\n

“I would say that if I were here for three years, I’d be thinking very differently.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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“I think today what I’m looking at is a business with a strong foundation and incredible momentum and happy players, happy caddies and happy families of players.<\/p>\n

“The players want to be here and I think that part is pretty special, but are there opportunities to come together? Of course and if there are prudent ones that make sense for LIV we’ll do them.”<\/p>\n

Subscribe to our Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The chairman of golf’s global rankings body says “no decision” has been made yet over LIV‘s latest application.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,6674,153818,3747,82],"class_list":["post-355499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-liv-golf","tag-owgr","tag-pga-tour","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}