LIV Golf is Gaslighting the OWGR

Gaslighting is a term that’s gained popularity recently and refers to one party or person having their own sanity and/or reality questioned by another. An example of this includes a scorned lover instilling self-doubt into their former partner despite being the original problem all along.

It’s also the tactic that LIV Golf is taking with the Official World Golf Rankings.

In recent weeks, LIV Golf representatives and players have repeatedly mocked, ridiculed, and openly berated the OWGR structure due to the upstart tour not qualifying to receive world ranking points. This criteria — which is publicly available on the OWGR’s website — explicitly states how any golf tour or tournament must be structured and ran in order for players to receive the coveted points.

World ranking points are important, of course, for more than just showcasing the best players in the world. They are also prerequisites for major championship eligibility, to name one. Men’s pro tour players also sign sponsorship deals with leading brands that include contract clauses related to the OWGR. If a player falls too far down the ranking list, he may be in breach of contract.

For these (and many other) reasons, LIV Golf desperately needs the OWGR to grant ranking points to its events so the tour’s players can earn them. LIV also needs these points for a fundamental reason: legitimacy.

The OWGR has long been scrutinized for its confusing nature and seemingly inconsistent structure. Originating in April of 1986, the ranking system was the brainchild of sports agency IMG’s founder Mark McCormick as a means to highlight players represented under the IMG umbrella. In 2004, a year after McCormick’s death, oversight of the OWGR moved to an entity named OWGR Limited. This entity, founded by organizations like the PGA Tour, European Tour and Augusta National Golf Club, would eventually reimagine the OWGR and its structure.

Despite its imperfections, the present-day OWGR is the best indicator we have to determine where golfers rank in comparison to one another. LIV Golf’s argument that its players “should” be included in any ranking of the world’s best golfers isn’t wrong. We cannot objectively assume that players like Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and even Phil Mickelson shouldn’t fall somewhere within a ranking of the best golfers on the planet.

Over time the players on LIV Golf have seen their world rankings melt away. Various attempts have been made by LIV to regain these points, however none have seemed like long-term solutions. That’s likely due to LIV focusing on the wrong root cause to their trouble.

The problem has been LIV Golf’s ill-advised gamble and ongoing stubbornness to completely ignore the OWGR’s eligibility criteria in the first place. One would think that any group thinking of starting a new professional golf tour would make the OWGR a priority regardless of their feelings on its system or structure. Much to the contrary, LIV chose to ignore the criteria out of some hope that the OWGR purveyors would bow to their demands of inclusion.

Mickelson, for example, has gone as far to suggest that the OWGR is “colluding” against LIV Golf. He is attempting to publicly shame the ranking system while completely ignoring the fact that his new employer took a chance and lost. Then again, ill-advised wagers aren’t anything new for Phil.

Regardless of your opinion on LIV Golf, they have the right to exist. They also have the right to feature whomever they wish on their roster, and they deserve the chance to succeed and thrive in the larger landscape of professional golf. We don’t have to like it and they don’t have to care.

What LIV Golf doesn’t seem to understand, however, is that the OWGR doesn’t have to care about them, either. The suggestion that any golf entity has to alter the way they have done business for decades just so LIV Golf can “fit in” is asinine at best.

It is true that many spokes in the OWGR Limited wheel do not want LIV Golf to succeed, but that has everything to do with LIV’s original mission: to destroy what came before it.

Make no mistake: LIV Golf wants to become the premier golf tour in the world. Its entire approach has been fueled by hatred of the PGA and European Tours, and that’s not me just making something up. Their players have repeatedly said the main reasons for switching to LIV has been due to unhappiness with details related to their previous situation.

None of us believed this, of course. We all know it’s because these players were purchased. But I digress.

I do believe at some point the OWGR will award ranking points to LIV Golf events in some manner. However, this acquiesce will be less about caving in to LIV’s stubbornness and more about meeting the demands from golf brands and sponsors. Companies like Titleist, Taylormade and Callaway have a ton of influence on the product you see on television every week.

In the meantime, don’t believe any of the nonsense LIV Golf’s players are spewing into microphones about the OWGR. The fact is that LIV chose to conduct business in this way and it’s not working out for them… yet. Nobody is to blame for this arrogant approach other than LIV, regardless of what their players may want you to believe.