The Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR) points were once again the main discussion point on Tuesday as Greg Norman announced a massive update. The LIV Golf CEO informed the world about the league withdrawing their application for the rankings points. Several golfers have since reacted to it including eight-time PGA Tour winner Patrick Cantlay, who admitted that “things needs to be changed“.
The current World No.6 weighed in on his thoughts regarding this issued and seemed to side with the breakaway tour golfers. Cantlay, who also serves as one of the six-player directors on the PGA Tour policy board claimed the OWGR system seems “broken“.
Speaking on this matter on Tuesday’s press conference, Cantlay said:
I think the World Rankings has a very particular set of criteria, and I don't know if broken is the right word, but I think there's been so much uncertainty and change in the last couple years that it's inevitable that things need to be updated or things need to be changed. Patrick Cantlay on OWGR.
Meanwhile his close friend and World No.5 Xander Schauffele also spoke about this. The American expressed that the breakaway tour does have atleast 10-15 players in the top rankings, it’s just that they are unranked.
The LIV tour definitely has really good players, players that are in the top 10 or top 25 in the world... they're just unranked right now. Xander Schauffele on OWGR.
At the moment, LIV Golf only has four players in the top 50 OWGR rankings with two of them, Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton having just left their respective tours to join them. Apart from them, Brooks Koepka and Cameron Smith are the other two representatives.
Matt Fitzpatrick shares his thoughts on OWGR
The OWGR has always been an interesting topic in golf. This rankings system is the one that helps the major championship organizers to invite the top players.
With LIV Golf not receiving this points, their rankings drop and thus several LIV golfers do not qualify for it. Matt Fitzpatrick has now shared his thoughts regarding this and claimed it’s not right to not have them in the rankings.
Speaking with Golf Today regarding this, the English golfer said:
I certainly think nowadays the ranking side of it is a little bit skewed... I don’t think it’s right to not have these players (LIV Golfers) involved in the world rankings. Matt Fitzpatrick on the ongoing OWGR issue.
With LIV Golf no longer pursuing the OWGR points, fans are curious to know what will their next step be. Only time will tell whether the ongoing merger between the two tours will play a factor in it and bring out a possible solution for golfers to receive the points.
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