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Austin Eckrot won a professional golf tournament this week, moving up 52 spots to No. 49 in the world rankings.
Jupiter’s Joaquin Niemann won this week’s professional golf tournament, but dropped four spots to 76th.
Eckrot won the Cognizant Classic in Palm Beach against 144 players, including two in the top 10 and eight in the top 30.
Niemann won the LIV Golf event in Jeddah while competing against 51 other players, including two who were ranked in the top 10 and 10 in the top 30 before joining LIV.
Approximately 24 hours after these rankings were released, LIV announced that CEO and Commissioner Greg Norman had abandoned efforts to have golfers accredited to the Official World Golf Rankings.
Norman’s decision, which came five months after LIV’s application to receive OWGR points was rejected, may have been symbolic given the door was closed. However, the message was received.
In a letter to LIV golfers obtained by Sports Illustrated, Norman said, “We will fight for you and go to great lengths to ensure your accomplishments are recognized within the existing ranking system. “Unfortunately, OWGR has shown little desire to work productively with us.” .
OWGR had reasons, many of them legitimate, to deny LIV Golf OWGR points given the significant differences between LIV events and most other tours. A solution needed to be found, and that meant both sides working together. It is unclear whether LIV attempted to address OWGR’s concerns.
Still, this week’s rankings once again highlighted how much a solution is needed for a tour that includes several players who by all accounts deserve to be at or near the top of the world rankings.
There are four LIV golfers in this week’s OWGR Top 50 Players, and soon there will be three: Jon Rahm (3rd), Tyrrell Hutton (17th), Brooks Koepka (30th); Cam Smith (50th place).
Smith was No. 2 in the world when he defected to Saudi Arabia’s Back League in August 2022. Koepka, a five-time major champion from Jupiter, was ranked 19th when he arrived two months before Smith. However, Koepka battled injuries in 2022, which caused his ranking to drop from No. 1 in February 2020.
“There’s been so much uncertainty and change over the last few years that we’ve had to update things and change things,” Jupiter’s Patrick Cantlay said Tuesday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill. “I think it’s inevitable that there will be a need.” Cantlay is ranked 6th in the world.
Xander Schauffele believes LIV has many “top-ranked players”. The likely candidate is Niemann, who has been extended invitations from the Masters and PGA Championship to this year’s event.
“It seemed pretty obvious going into the start what would happen, but unfortunately we didn’t meet the criteria,” said Schauffele, a Jupiter resident and world No. 5.
“But there are definitely some really good players on the LIV Tour, a lot of players who are in the top 10 or top 25 in the world. I mean, they’re kind of unranked right now. But I “I believe that they are definitely the top-ranked players in the world.”
Niemann’s invitation brings the number of LIV golfers to 12, or nearly 25% of the Masters roster. But that’s this year. As players continue to languish in the world rankings and their exemptions expire, serious disrespect begins to occur.
The fact that Bryson DeChambeau is 182nd and Dustin Johnson is 266th hurts OWGR’s credibility. There are other examples.
But Norman is right that the damage will be done if the leaders of the four majors finally find a way to allow LIV golfers to receive their fair share of world ranking points.
“Even if points were awarded instantly for LIV Golf events, the OWGR system is designed in such a way that it would be functionally impossible for many to regain a position near the top of the rankings to which they belong. ” said Mr. Norman, a Palm resident. Beach Gardens, the letter said.
That door was closed, but at least Niemann did something about it, earning invites after a strong offseason at events in Dubai and Australia.
And absent an agreement between the PGA Tour and the Saudi Public Investment Fund that includes a solution to the world ranking points dilemma, that may be the only path forward for a growing number of LIV golfers.
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