{"id":274458,"date":"2025-11-06T04:41:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T04:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/274458\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T04:41:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T04:41:10","slug":"rory-mcilroy-says-livs-move-to-72-holes-is-peculiar-wonders-the-benefits-of-ranking-points","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/274458\/","title":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy says LIV&#8217;s move to 72 holes is &#8216;peculiar,&#8217; wonders the benefits of ranking points"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates \u2014 Rory McIlroy has described LIV Golf\u2019s decision to expand its events to 72 holes as \u201cpeculiar.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Saudi-funded breakaway circuit will align itself more with golf\u2019s traditional tours by moving from three rounds to four next year.<\/p>\n<p>The format switch could boost LIV\u2019s bid to be recognized by the Official World Golf Ranking, which is critical because the four majors use its listing to help determine their fields.<\/p>\n<p>The OWGR rejected LIV\u2019s request for world ranking points when the league started, mainly over concerns about it being a closed shop of the same 54 players all year, except for alternates replacing injured players, and that team competition could affect the integrity of the individual competition since it was based on the same scores.<\/p>\n<p>    <a class=\"Link\" aria-label=\"LIV abandons 54-hole format in favor of 72-hole tournaments\" href=\"https:\/\/www.golfchannel.com\/pga-tour\/news\/liv-abandons-54-hole-format-in-favor-of-72-hole-tournaments\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"Image\" alt=\"LIV Golf Invitational - Bedminster - Day Three\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762404070_488_\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The \u201cLIV\u201d format is no more. The league announced Tuesday that its regular-season tournaments will now be 72 holes of stroke play.<\/p>\n<p>McIlroy has been outspoken about LIV\u2019s disruption of the golf world, so was asked for his view of the change to 72 holes when speaking Wednesday at his news conference ahead of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s a peculiar move,\u201d McIlroy said, \u201cbecause I think they could have got ranking points with three rounds. I don\u2019t think three rounds vs. four rounds is what was holding them back.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt certainly puts them more in line with traditional golf tournaments than what we\u2019ve all done,\u201d he added. \u201cIt brings them back into not really being a destructor and sort of is falling more in line with what everyone else does. But if that\u2019s what they felt they needed to do to get the ranking points, I guess that\u2019s what they had to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>McIlroy questioned how many ranking points will be on offer at LIV Golf events.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause their strength of fields are going to be so weak because a lot of the guys have fallen already in the rankings because they have not had ranking points for so long, I don\u2019t know if the ranking points are really going to benefit them,\u201d McIlroy said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, it will be interesting to see how it plays out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>McIlroy is playing the Abu Dhabi tournament for a 12th time. He has nine top-three finishes but has never won.<\/p>\n<p>The Northern Irishman tops the season-long Race to Dubai standings with two events to play, and a win this week would push him closer to a seventh title in what was the Order of Merit \u2014 one off Colin Montgomerie\u2019s record haul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates \u2014 Rory McIlroy has described LIV Golf\u2019s decision to expand its events to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-274458","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}