Take ‘Official’ Out of OWGR, Graeme McDowell Says As Rankings Controversy Continues

Two-time major champion Dustin Johnson has dropped to 24th in the Official World Golf Ranking, which LIV Golf players cite as a prime example of a flawed system.

The LIV Golf Invitational Series has traveled four time zones and more than 4,000 miles from Bangkok to Jeddah for the seventh of eight events on the first-year schedule.

But the Official World Golf Ranking talk has hardly subsided.

The issue was at the forefront of last week’s event, where Eugenio Chacarra won the title in Bangkok for his first pro victory.

And it will apparently be front of mind here again at Royal Greens Country Club, site of the annual Saudi International tournament and this week’s LIV Golf Invitational Series Jeddah event that begins Friday.

“The word ‘Official’ has to go away from OWGR if they don’t take care of the players out here,” said Graeme McDowell, reiterating a LIV Golf argument that the rankings are rendered less credible if LIV players are not part of the accounting.

McDowell attended a news conference with Dustin Johnson and Harold Varner III, the three players who have won the Saudi International since its inception in 2019. The first three years the tournament was co-sanctioned by the European Tour; this year it was part of the Asian Tour.

“This guy standing in the middle of the three of us [Johnson], if his world ranking is inaccurate, then the whole system is inaccurate,” McDowell said of the two-time major champion who has dropped to 24th in the world, having not played a world ranking event since he tied for sixth at the British Open in July.

Johnson, 38 has won LIV’s Boston event and had four other top-10 finishes in six events. His combined earnings for individual and team play and a bonus he will get for being the Series’ leading individual point earner have surpassed $30 million. In six events. With two to play.

But money doesn’t buy world ranking points.

And the OWGR has a long list of criteria for any tour to meet to be accredited. (Disclaimer: By the OWGR’s own handbook any of the qualifications can be waived, and the board has sole discretion to decide on an application. The board is comprised, among others, of PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and DP World Tour CEO Keith Pelley.)

One of them is the league needs to operate for a year. Another is to have a 36-hole cut. And yet another is a clear pathway into tournaments.

LIV meets none of those—at least not yet. Last week it tried to fast-track its road to ranking points by partnering with the developmental MENA Tour and incorporating it into the circuit, having all players become members and making LIV Golf part of the MENA Tour’s schedule.

While the idea has some merit—the MENA Tour has had world ranking points since 2016 and worked to incorporate LIV Golf into its membership and qualification process—it was never going to happen as soon as last week’s event. And that idea was quickly dashed by the OWGR, which issued a statement saying a review needed to first take place.

“We’re going to get world ranking points,” Johnson said. “Just right now it’s another way. And the longer it takes, obviously the [tougher] it becomes for us. If we wait too long all of our rankings are going to drop so much, it’s not going to matter. We are hoping they do the right thing.”

Johnson’s 2020 Masters victory means he has a lifetime invitation to Augusta National, along with spots in the U.S. Open through ’24 and the PGA Championship and the Open through ’25.

Cam Smith, who won the Open at St. Andrews, is another player who is secure for several years.

But others risk losing their chance to play in next year’s major championships if they drop out of the top 50 in the world.

The Masters uses that as a criteria at the end of the year. The U.S. Open has a top-60 cutoff in two different weeks leading up to the tournament. The Open uses the top 50 eight weeks ahead.

Smith is the highest-ranked LIV Golf player at No. 2, followed by Joaquin Niemann at No. 22, Johnson at 24 and Abraham Ancer at 25. Brooks Koepka (33), Kevin Na (34), Louis Oosthuizen (38), Talor Gooch (39), Varner (46), Jason Kokrak (47) and Bryson DeChambeau (49) are the LIV players ranked among the top 50.

Gooch, Varner and Kokrak are the most vulnerable because they have no major championship exemptions to fall back on.

Varner, 32, won the Saudi International in February with a dramatic birdie-eagle finish to edge Bubba Watson (who will join LIV Golf next year) and vault from 99th in the world to 45th. He played well enough over the next month to earn his first invitation to the Masters. That now appears to be a lost cause for him.

“I think we knew what we were getting into,” Varner said. “I think it’s easy to sit here and say what could happen, what should happen. But obviously for me, I knew what was going to happen. Like it wasn’t going to be easy.

“I think the people at LIV did an unbelievable job. I don’t know about the check marks [to receive points]. Honestly, I [couldn’t] care less. I knew what could happen in my career and I accept that.”

McDowell also acknowledged that none of this was ever going to be easy. LIV Golf is a disrupter, and the OWGR system was never designed with such an entity in mind.

The popular response has been that LIV players knew they were taking a chance, that many of them have been rewarded handsomely in the form of guaranteed contracts, the price for that risk.

“When I look at the OWGR, it’s to give everyone a fair opportunity around the globe as a professional player, playing in a strength of field that’s relative to be recognized within that ranking system to give everyone a fair crack at the whip,” said McDowell, 43, the 2010 U.S. Open champion who has dropped to 419th in the world. “LIV has been so transparent with us trying to make sure that they are ticking all the boxes and do the job they need to do to get a fair case with OWGR.

“The guys who sit on that board … there’s obviously a huge amount of confliction on that board. And the longer this goes on, we have a huge amount of deterioration in that current world ranking points for the guys out here. We get hurt the longer this game plays out, and it needs to get taken care of ASAP.”