LIV Golf accomplished a feat years in the making when the Official World Golf Ranking governing body announced earlier this month that LIV\u2019s competitors will begin receiving OWGR points for competing in the league\u2019s events.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t a full win for LIV, \u200bas OWGR points will be given out only to top-10 finishers in individual stroke \u200cplay in its events, a distinction from the PGA Tour and the other major worldwide tours.<\/p>\n
That was something LIV was initially critical of, releasing a statement condemning the \u201cunprecedented\u201d limitations.<\/p>\n
But LIV CEO Scott O\u2019Neil took a more pragmatic approach when addressing the change at a press conference ahead of this week\u2019s LIV Adelaide event in Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re so grateful to \u200cbe welcomed \u200binto the golf family officially. That\u2019s first and foremost,\u201d O\u2019Neil \u2060said. \u201cIt\u2019s very nice, especially you have \u2060a board with two \u2014 the commissioner of the PGA Tour is on the board and the CEO of the European Tour is on the board. Arguably those are two that would have a bit to lose if you have a scarcity mindset, if you will, by our \u200bbeing recognized publicly.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be able to get to that point, what a tremendous nod to what LIV Golf has built, is building, and where it\u2019s heading in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
The change was \u2060immediately evident in last week\u2019s season-opening LIV Golf Riyadh event \u2060in Saudi Arabia. Rookie Elvis Smylie jumped from 133rd to 77th in \u200bthe OWGR rankings with his victory in his first LIV event.<\/p>\n
The biggest reason why LIV has been pushing \u200bso hard for OWGR recognition, beyond legitimizing the league, is that the points \u200csystem is used to determine eligibility for major events, potentially restricting those who don\u2019t automatically receive bids as former major champions.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, though, world ranking points were a nice recognition and a great step forward, and our focus is on making sure that as many of these young talented players that \u2060we have and these established superstars and these kind of solid-core veterans get the opportunity to play on the world\u2019s biggest stage, and that\u2019s the four majors,\u201d O\u2019Neil added.<\/p>\n
Asked if he\u2019ll push for a \u2060greater deal closer to the \u200cPGA\u2019s points distribution after this season, O\u2019Neil put on a nice public \u2060face.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve learned over time that sometimes the best negotiations are behind the \u200bscenes and \u200cnot in front of the cameras,\u201d O\u2019Neil said. \u201cSo we\u2019re just at \u200bthis point just \u2060publicly really grateful for where we are.\u201d<\/p>\n
In other LIV-related news, the league announced that next year\u2019s LIV Adelaide event will be moved from The Grange Golf Club, which is hosting the event for the fourth straight year this week, to the Kooyonga Golf Club in 2027.<\/p>\n
\u201cKooyonga has a reputation of being one of the top courses in Adelaide. It\u2019s spectacularly beautiful, and we\u2019re very excited about our time there,\u201d \u200bO\u2019Neil said.<\/p>\n
\u2013Field Level Media<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LIV Golf accomplished a feat years in the making when the Official World Golf Ranking governing body announced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-469645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469645","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=469645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}