PGA Tour pros and LIV golfers agree on one thing

PGA Tour professionals and those who left for LIV Golf don't agree on much, but the rival groups have recently teamed up for one unifying mission. After LIV gave up in its quest to gain Official World Golf Ranking accreditation, players from both tours spoke out against the failing rating system. 

"I'm going to be honest, I didn't know they were still trying to get world ranking points," Jon Rahm told reporters this week ahead of LIV Golf Hong Kong, per ESPN. "But the one thing I can say is I'm going to back to what I said two years ago in the DP World Tour Championship. I didn't think it was a good system back then. And if anything, the more time that goes on, the more it proves to be wrong."

Of course Rahm would hold that opinion. The Spaniard is a new member of LIV Golf, so he has no avenue to gain OWGR points until he plays in the major championships. LIV has been shut out of the OWGR since its debut in 2022, which is why Dustin Johnson has fallen to 266th in the world, Bryson DeChambeau has dropped to 182nd and Joaquin Niemann is just 76th. 

But LIV golfers aren't the only ones frustrated with the ranking system. Even PGA Tour pros agree the OWGR is failing to do its duty by ignoring LIV. 

"I don’t think the world rankings are a true representation of the golf game at the minute," World No. 9 Matt Fitzpatrick told reporters this week ahead of the Arnold Palmer Invitational, per Golf Today. "I don’t really look at them or pay attention to them anymore. I don’t think they’re right."

"The LIV Tour definitely has really good players and players that are in the top 10 or top 25 in the world, and there’s many of them," said World No. 5 Xander Schauffele. "So, they’re just sort of unranked right now, but to me, I do believe they’re definitely top-ranked players in the world."

That's an impossible point to argue. LIV Golf has the reigning Masters champion in Jon Rahm, the reigning PGA Championship winner in Brooks Koepka and other major champions in Johnson, DeChambeau and Cameron Smith, to name a few. These are world-class players who deserve to be ranked properly. The OWGR knows that, yet it still refuses to take action. 

"I think anybody who watches golf can tell who the best players in the world are," Rahm said. "Obviously, I don't think the ranking is reflective of that right now to its entirety."

It's hard to get the PGA Tour and LIV Golf to unify on any opinion, so this could signal the beginning of the end for the OWGR.