LIV Golf commissioner Greg Norman has launched a fresh attack on the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) as he continues to fight for the Saudi Arabia-backed breakaway tour to be recognised.
LIV has attracted several of the world's best players since it was founded in 2022, but the tour is not sanctioned by the OWGR. An October decision determined that numerous factors, including LIV's 54-hole format, its team competition and the lack of an adequate qualifying process, meant the tour did not meet the OWGR's criteria.
The tour's players have plummeted down the rankings as a result, locking some of them out of the major championships unless they qualify by other means. While the likes of Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka and Cameron Smith have their places in the big four events secured by recent major championship wins, others including 2023 LIV Golf champion Talor Gooch and former Ryder Cup stars Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter have had to miss out.
Two-time major champion Norman and many of his players have blasted the OWGR in the wake of the decision, and the Aussie doubled down on his criticism on Monday when reflecting on the latest release of the rankings.
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Norman posted a picture on Instagram of the OWGR top 50 alongside the rankings of Sports Illustrated, The Universal Golf Ranking, Data Golf, and said: "Laughable. LIV would have 2 players in the top 50 OWGR if you exclude recent signees!"
LIV has five players in the OWGR top 50, although three of them are new signings in Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton and Adrian Meronk, who played their way into their positions predominantly through success on the PGA Tour last season.
Koepka is the highest-ranked founding member of LIV's roster in 29th, thanks in large part to his win at the PGA Championship last year, as well as a strong performance at The Masters. Norman's countryman Smith, meanwhile, is clinging on to 44th place in the rankings due to his 2022 triumph at The Open Championship.
LIV Golf star Dustin Johnson has also been a vocal critic of the OWGR (Michael Reaves/Getty Images)However, Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau, two of the star names LIV poached from the PGA Tour when it launched, have slumped to 231 and 169 respectively in the rankings, and they face losing their major championship places when their exemptions from major wins in 2020 run out.
The other three rankings Norman referenced have between 8-10 LIV players in their top 50, adding weight to Smith's claim after the decision in October that the OWGR has lost credibility.
"I think it is almost obsolete now," the 30-year-old said. "We've got some guys out here who are playing some of the best golf in the world and they're outside the top 100, 200 in the world. It's pretty ridiculous."
Former Masters and US Open champion Johnson agreed with his LIV Golf rival, adding: "I feel like you can't really use the world ranking system anymore. That's my take on it. Hard to use the world ranking system if you're excluding 48 guys that are good players. The rankings are skewed. It doesn't really affect me as it does some of the other guys. I want the points for the other guys."
The PGA Tour and LIV Golf's backers, the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, remain in talks over a merger deal which could reopen more routes for LIV players to get ranking points, but a resolution has not been forthcoming despite months of negotiations.
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