European Tour pros gripe about return of world ranking

7-week gap between restart of golf tours in U.S. compared with European Tour’s resumption will favor Americans, they contend

Complained: About the relaunch of the Official World Golf Ranking next week, a number of European Tour players. They contend that the OWGR’s restart Monday, June 15, after the PGA Tour and Korn Ferry Tour resume their seasons June 11, will leave players on the European Tour at a disadvantage. The European Tour is not scheduled to resume play until July 30. France's Mike Lorenzo-Vera tweeted that it was an “unfair decision,” and Austria’s Bernd Wiesberger added via Twitter: “Either all Tours are playing for points or none!” Keith Pelley, the head of the European Tour, wrote to his players in a memo obtained by Golf Digest. “We agreed with the proposal that the ranking should restart alongside the resumption of the PGA Tour and Korn Ferry Tour next week on the understanding that dispensation was made for the European Tour and the Challenge Tour – and indeed many other tours around the world – whose players will be disadvantaged by not being able to play at this time,” Pelley said, according to a GolfDigest.com report. “Our proposal to correct this imbalance was either freezing the current average points of all European Tour members unable to play tournament golf until we restart our season or increasing the overall OWGR points available at our tournaments when we do restart. Without either of those adjustments, the consequences are negative for the majority of our membership, who will lose points through no fault of their own, when they are unable to play.”

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