LIV Golfers Want a Path to Major Championships, but History Is Not on Their Side

LIV golfers will not receive Official World Golf Ranking points, and it seems unlikely the majors will bend their criteria on the fly to give LIV a path to participate. Plus, more notes from Bob Harig in his Weekly Read.

With the Official World Golf Ranking denying LIV Golf’s application for world ranking points, the league will now hope that the major championships offer some sort of qualifying system based on the season-long points list or some kind cumulative results in events leading up to the various championships.

More Weekly Read from Bob Harig: LIV/OWGR Battle Will Continue | Lexi Thompson's Big Week

As players continued to drop in the rankings, there were more calls for this as a way for LIV players to earn spots in the majors with no OWGR avenue.

LIV golfers DeChambeau and Phil Mickelson, along with their colleagues, face an uncertain future at the majors / USA Today

“I think at this point in time now that they’re not allowing (ranking points), we would love to find another way to be integrated into the major championship system since I think we have some of the best players in the world,” said Bryson DeChambeau. “Top 12 on the list, the money list, at the end of the year or the points list at the end of the year, would be I think obvious for the major championships to host the best players in the world at those four events each year.”

Good luck with that. First, the idea that the majors would give one-fourth of the league spots is quite the reach. Second, it was the OWGR’s major championship members who ended up being the unanimous vote that decided LIV’s fate, citing the “closed” nature of LIV for denying the application. So they’re going to turn around and then give automatic spots to a tour it deems to have a serious flaw in its makeup?

Let’s say the major championships are O.K. with giving spots to LIV, based on OWGR chairman Peter Dawson’s media comments in which he acknowledged it’s a problem that players such as past major champions Dustin Johnson and Sergio Garcia are not receiving OWGR points.

The problem? Historically majors have given very little direct access beyond the PGA Tour.

A quick recap of major championship qualifications as they relate to OWGR and direct qualification via tours

Masters: PGA Tour winners; top 50 OWGR at year-end and week before Masters; top 30 final FedEx Cup standings.

PGA Championship: Top 70 PGA points list based on tournaments played for a year leading up to PGA Championship; three spots to International Federation list, which is based on OWGR; this year it gave one spot to Asian Tour, Japan Tour and Sunshine Tour; and numerous exemptions, typically based on OWGR top 100.

U.S. Open: Multiple PGA Tour winners in the previous year; top 30 final FedEx Cup standings; top 60 OWGR three weeks before and one week before; one spot to the leader of the Asian Tour Order of Merit; one spot to the Australasia Tour Order of Merit; one spot to the leader of the Sunshine Tour Order of Merit; one spot to the points leader of the Korn Ferry Tour; the top 10 points earners from a series of three DP World Tour events leading up to the U.S. Open.

British Open: Top 50 OWGR eight weeks before the championship; top 30 final FedEx Cup standings; top 30 final DP World Tour Race to Dubai; Order of Merit leaders from the Australasia and Sunshine Tour and top two from Japan Golf Tour.

Notice that only the Open gives direct access via finish on the final year’s points/money list to the DP World Tour. The Masters and PGA do not, and the U.S. Open has a hybrid based on recent play.

Does this suggest LIV Golf will suddenly be given spots in this manner?

Both the U.S. Open and the Open can fall back on the fact that they offer 36-hole qualifier tournaments as a way to get in their tournaments. And both do have limited access to other tours around the world. Would they open up a few spots for the top players on LIV?

Martin Slumbers, the R&A CEO, didn’t close the door on it earlier this year at the Open.

“I think that’s one of the options that we have,” he said. “It's not the option that is top of my list at the moment, but it would be one of the options that is available.”

For now, it’s LIV’s best way into the majors, even if the avenue is hardly a clear path at this point.

More Weekly Read Notes

• Tom Kim defended his title at the Shriners Children’s Open, winning for the third time in just 44 starts on the PGA Tour. He's 21 years old.

• Kim pulled off a rarity in that he won the same event twice in the same season. Because last fall was the start of the final wrap-around season, this year’s Las Vegas event, like others this fall, will count for 2023 and not ’24.

• According to stats guru Justin Ray, Kim is the youngest player, at age 21, to defend a title in a recognized tournament since John McDermott did so at the 1912 U.S. Open, when he was 20 years, three months and 24 days old. McDermott was the first American to win the U.S. Open, which began in 1895.

• Sweden’s Ludvig Aberg continued an impressive run, shooting a final-round 62 to finish tied for 13th and move to 95th in the FedEx Cup standings, all but assuring his 2024 PGA Tour card. Not bad for a guy who didn’t start playing the Tour until May. Ludvig won the Omega European Masters last month, played on the winning European Ryder Cup team and lost in a playoff last week at the Sanderson Farms.

• Brooks Koepka’s playoff victory over Talor Gooch at the LIV Golf Jeddah event moved him into third place in the overall individual standings, earning him a $4 million bonus on top of the $4 million he won for winning the tournament. He bounced DeChambeau out of the third spot. Gooch won the individual title and its $18 million bonus, with Cam Smith finishing second for $7 million.

• Bernd Wiesberger, who played for Europe in the 2021 Ryder Cup, needed a big final day to avoid LIV relegation, shot 63 at Royal Greens to finish 11th and rise out of the final four spots of players who will be forced to attend LIV’s Promotions event, where three spots in the 2024 league will be available. 
  
  
• This week’s Team Championship in Miami has a change in format that will see all teams compete during the final day, but only the top four through the first two days will be eligible to win the team championship. The top four teams in the final standings receive a first-day bye.
  
  
• The fourth of seven FedEx Fall events continues this week in Japan with the Zozo Championship, which has a 78-player field and no cut. Keegan Bradley is the defending champion, and 16 of the top 50 in the OWGR are entered. Hideki Matsuyama is also in the field, as are three U.S. Ryder Cup team members: Rickie Fowler, Xander Schauffele and Collin Morikawa.
  
  
• The start to the 2024 PGA Tour season at the Sentry begins in 80 days. And the first round of the Masters is 172 days away.