Saudi-Backed LIV Shifts Strategy in its War With the PGA

The top professional golfers who have defected from the PGA Tour for the Saudi-backed LIV tour are making loads of money, but one thing they aren’t getting are world ranking points, which are crucial to making even more cash and playing in golf’s major championships. So far, the secretive body that grants ranking points, the Official World Golf Ranking, isn’t awarding them for LIV events.

The struggle between the PGA Tour and its Saudi-owned rival LIV Golf for control of the sport is playing out not just on golf courses, but across all three branches of the American government. It’s also being fought around a little-known entity based in Surrey, England, whose statisticians churn out a weekly pecking order for the best golfers on the planet.

The Official World Golf Ranking is no mere fan compendium. It’s a critical pathway for golfers to get into events such as the Masters. Players’ deals with sponsors also often escalate based on where they stand in the rankings. LIV players are tumbling in the rankings, and are only set to grow more anxious the steeper they fall. 

The fight brings together all of golf’s power players: The four majors, along with the PGA Tour and DP World Tour (also known as the European Tour) sit on OWGR’s board. And the length of time it takes for LIV to get into OWGR could determine whether the new circuit breaks through, or faces an existential threat, in the wider golf ecosystem. In effect, the fight for OWGR is about control of the game, and whether the golf establishment can continue to apply its traditional standards, or has to yield to a new, hungry challenger. 

It could fall to a U.S. court to decide. The OWGR claim looms large in the antitrust lawsuit in which LIV is arguing that the PGA Tour has acted improperly to squash a rival, including collaborating with the wider golf establishment. In a counterclaim, the PGA Tour says that LIV made promises it couldn’t keep in order to poach players.  If LIV doesn’t get its way, it could also trigger additional litigation on this specific issue in Europe, said people familiar with LIV’s position, or a push to get the majors to accept alternative rankings. 

No move is too minute, or too bold, for LIV to try to get its players back in fast. That’s why it recently formed its alliance with the MENA Tour (a developmental circuit in the Middle East and North Africa), in a new bid to prop up players’ rankings starting this weekend while it continues to fight for LIV events to make the OWGR cut. 

The MENA Tour is already accredited but hadn’t competed since the pandemic’s onset. Suddenly this month, it was back, appearing as LIV’s partner for LIV’s long-scheduled event this weekend in Bangkok (which isn’t actually in the Middle East or North Africa).

Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and others aren’t just the hottest names playing for LIV. They play for MENA, now, too, redubbed “MENA Tour members” by its commissioner. OWGR didn’t buy it. 

LIV argues that after snapping up some of the best players in the world—as measured by OWGR—that the rankings need to include them to continue to be considered valid. Without LIV players properly rated, they believe, the rankings would simply be inaccurate. British Open champion Cameron Smith, for instance, was No. 2 in the world when he joined the rebel tour. 

LIV also says that OWGR has made clear it reserves the right to incorporate tours that don’t meet all the criteria, and reject tours that do, and that it’s being treated unfairly at the behest of the dominant golf tours that control the OWGR board in another instance of monopolistic behavior.

OWGR’s broad position is that its validity comes from making sure that the events meet its rigorous standards for inclusion—and that the best players in the world may currently be playing in LIV competitions that fall short.  People familiar with OWGR’s opaque process—its full requirements for accreditation aren’t publicly available—say there is a lengthy review process and they aren’t going to give LIV special treatment. 

For a new tour to be considered by OWGR, its organizers need to express interest, then submit an application with supporting documents to show how they meet the OWGR’s criteria, people familiar with OWGR’s process said. It also needs to be proposed by an existing circuit, with the Asian Tour, which received a $300 million investment from LIV, taking care of that. 

Tours that apply can negotiate over how to meet all the requirements and make changes with feedback from OWGR, they said. Applications are reviewed by OWGR’s technical committee, not its governance board, and are on average accepted, from the time of the expression of interest, in a year and a half. LIV submitted its application in July, though it though it met with OWGR in March. 

Some of the criteria are straightforward and no problem for LIV, such as a requirement that play be governed by the rules of golf as established by its governing bodies. There’s also no disagreement that LIV has knocked one requirement out of the park: having a minimum of 10 tournaments, with an average purse of $30,000 or more. 

But some of the key criteria where LIV may face resistance from OWGR are fundamental to LIV’s structure. Its small fields of 48 players, inside tournaments that last just 54 holes, fall short of OWGR’s standards, the people familiar with the process said. They added that they expect tournaments to average at least 75 players and that non-developmental circuits should play the standard 72 holes. The LIV events also do not have a cut, which is required. 

LIV believes it has made an effort to meet those standards, according to LIV executives. It has added an additional 72-hole LIV Golf International Series, which will have a cut and 128 players apiece, pulling the average above 75. The OWGR may be skeptical of counting that, the people familiar with the body said, as those events are co-sanctioned by Asian Tour.  LIV executives note that there are accredited events, including ones on the PGA Tour such as its Tour Championship, that do not have a cut and feature smaller fields. Those tournaments, though, are the exception not the rule. 

The upstart circuit does not dispute that it falls short on one of the key criteria: that a tour must demonstrate compliance with the guidelines for at least a year. LIV’s first full season isn’t until next year, when it’s introducing other elements that it hopes will bring it up to code. That means, according to the typical process, LIV would need to wait until 2024—at least. 

Here, LIV is hoping for an exception.  “In light of the implications for OWGR and its credibility of not affording LIV Golf players appropriate points, and in view of LIV Golf’s unprecedented strength of field for a tour in its infancy, we have urged that OWGR gain comfort with LIV Golf’s status, because it is plainly in the best interests of the OWGR, players, and the game to do so,” LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman wrote in an August letter to players and their agents. 

For now, LIV’s players project to continue falling in the rankings as the battle plays out. Those golfers who are eager enough to boost their ranking could turn to playing on some Asian Tour events, as former Masters champion Patrick Reed did earlier this year.  Rory McIlroy has emerged as one of the PGA Tour’s staunchest defenders, and even he said he would have no problem if LIV were eventually accredited. “I certainly would want the best players in the world ranked accordingly,” McIlroy said.  He also added a stiff caveat.  “You can’t make up your own rules,” he said. “There’s criteria there and everyone knows what they are. If they want to pivot to meet the criteria, they can.”