Golfers from LIV are bravely creating a new path in a stale old sport, despite the obstructionist conspiracies of golf’s corrupted deep state. Phil Mickelson insists that he has some authority in the field of corrupt conspiracies, given his perilous past proximity to an insider-trading indictment.
The Official World Golf Ranking’s refusal to recognize the Saudi funded circuit as the latest evidence of anti-LIV colusion exposes a reaction by the league and players who are more interested in rewarding their enlightenment rather than indulgent their entitlement.
The OWGR decision was neither shocking nor suspicious. LIV did not meet the criteria for inclusion 15 months ago, and it hasn’t made any serious efforts to comply since. Peter Dawson, the chairman of the ranking committee, stated that algorithmic solutions are available to answer questions regarding the size of the field, the number of rounds, and the absence of a cut. However, there are still two major concerns: the qualification system and the coexistence of LIV’s team and individual tournaments.
The decision to enter LIV is based on the whims of Greg Norman, and the checks written by Yasir al-Rumayyan the head of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. Similarly, exits from LIV can be equally unfair. Some stars are contractually exempted from the consequences for poor performance. The Board Committee believes it is unfair to the thousands of players that work every day to qualify for OWGR-eligible tournaments to be able to tour. Dawson wrote Norman that the tour operates in a mostly closed manner. He also noted that LIV team members are often grouped and cited comments from Sebastian Munoz who admitted in April that he cared less about tying Brooks Koepka at the last hole of a tournament for an individual event than protecting the narrow lead they had in the team competition.
Dawson’s signposting the fast track to conformity, LIV’s response showed that it wanted a podium spot without running the race.
The sole purpose of OWGR is to rank players around the world. LIV’s characteristically disingenuous announcement made it clear that the OWGR could no longer meet that objective. The OWGR’s objective is to rank players who compete on tours whose integrity in competition can be vouchsafed, but LIV cannot. According to LIV logic, Dustin Johnson is entitled to ranking points just because he is Dustin Johnson. This applies whether he competes in the Masters, or a member-guest event.
LIV’s statement, which embraced the gaslighting goal, continued: “A ranking that fails to fairly reflect all participants, regardless of where they play golf in the world, robs golf fans, players, and all golf stakeholders of any objective basis for accurate recognition of world’s top player performances. This also deprives some of the most prestigious tournaments from having the best possible field.”
The OWGR will be ranking competitors from the United States, Spain Macau, Japan South Korea, Australia China South Africa Sweden and Indonesia this week. The OWGR meets all reasonable standards for “regardless of where in world” even though it excludes Saudi Arabia. It’s not a disagreement about people or geography, but rather about the format. Not who or where but how. The majors are free to change their exemption criteria for LIV players. However, none of them will likely adopt Bryson’s naive idea to automatically exclude the top 12 members of the league, or 25% of all the roster.
Phredo Mickelson, after the OWGR announcement, swung through social media to peddle conspiracies so fanciful that you lose IQ points by reading them. All the while, conveniently ignoring the problematic LIV structure. He posted: “This is the sixth move in a very long game of chess.” You won’t believe the moves 32-37. Then it really gets good.
It’s not surprising that, despite the smug gibberish that you would expect from the most intelligent man to ever be bailed by butchers. He still clings on to some mysterious plan that we are all too stupid to understand. Mickelson sold the same bill of goods to players that Norman did in public: LIV players could cherry-pick from other tours, they’d be eligible for majors and they’d be hailed innovators. The courts said no; the majors said “earn it” and the public opinion said that they were pawns in sportswashing. The only legitimacy LIV has is the Framework Agreement, which was granted to it by the tours that it sought out to overthrow.
LIV’s and some of its players’ position on ranking points is based on the same trait which attracted many to their ranks: entitlement. The open market would never have considered such a large compensation. They are entitled to job stability, regardless of their performance. Name recognition is enough to gain them entry into some of the most important events. The world’s top golfers are entitled to rank them among the best despite rarely comparing themselves with the best. They are entitled to be accommodated in a system that they decry as outdated.
This sense of entitlement doesn’t belong to just LIV. The PGA Tour, which has never sold a single ticket or drawn any attention, as well as the many entities who discreetly doff their caps in hope that Al-Rumayyan’s bankroll will eventually be directed towards them instead of against them, have all been affected by this. It has been a while since the unseemly race to be first in line for the trough began.
The fight over the world rankings is not different from any other cul-de sac the sport has been in for the past two seasons. The problem is that there are a few guys who chose money over competition legitimacy and don’t want to be held accountable for their choices. It’s not the OWGR problem.
