LIV's next hurdle is for World Golf Ranking points

Players aligned with LIV Golf took the first steps in legal action this week to gain entry to an event on a tour where they used to play. An arbitrator issued a stay that allows Ian Poulter, Adrian Otaegui and Justin Harding to play this week’s Scottish Open on the DP World Tour.

That’s expected to be just the start of what may be a long string of legal proceedings between LIV and the PGA and DP World tours that will jam up court dockets for years to come. Instead of birdies and bogeys, expect to hear a lot about anti-trust and charitable tax status.

But the next battle between the two sides could be just as important and it’s set to begin next week during the Open Championship in St. Andrews, Scotland.

That’s when the Official World Golf Ranking board will meet to look at the application of LIV Golf to award points for its events. As with just about every previous interaction, it’s expected to get testy.

World Ranking points are important for LIV players as they represent one of the few ways that players can earn spots in the four major championships without being past champions. The first two LIV tournaments didn’t award any points and, as a result, many of the LIV players are starting to lose their footing on the ranking list.

So far, the drops are minor. Brooks Koepka, Louis Oosthuizen and Bryson DeChambeau have all moved down one position. Sergio Garcia has lost five spots and Brandon Grace four.

However, the longer they play tournaments that don’t award points, the steeper the fall becomes.

Currently, the Official World Golf Ranking awards points based on a player’s finish and the strength of field at each event. A golfer maintains his points over a rolling two-year period, but they decrease in value after 13 weeks. A player is ranked using his average points per tournament divided by the number of events he’s played in that two-year period. An update to the algorithm that will refine the measurements will come into effect in August.

It’s not only players on the PGA and DP World tours who earn points, but also those playing such circuits as the Japan Golf Tour, the PGA Tour of Australasia, the Nordic Golf League, and PGA Tour Canada. There are 23 different tours listed on the Official World Golf Ranking web site.

The four major championships offer exemptions based on various standings in the world rankings. For instance, this year’s U.S. Open gave entries to the top 60 point leaders and ties in the Official World Golf Ranking not already exempt three weeks prior to the tournament.

It’s easy to see, then, why players in the LIV Golf events want to be able to earn points. That process is underway. The organization has made its application to the Official World Golf Ranking organization, which will first be reviewed next week by the technical committee. If it makes it past that, it will move on to the board.

Here’s where it might get complicated. The ranking’s board includes PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and DP World Tour chief executive Keith Pelley, both of whom are strong critics of LIV Golf. Other members of the eight-person board include United States Golf Association chief executive officer Mike Whan and Will Jones, executive director of Augusta National Golf Club, which runs the Masters.

LIV chairman Greg Norman has called on Monahan to recuse himself from any vote based on past comments about LIV but there’s no indication if he will do that.

The other difficulty for the LIV group is meeting the 15 requirements necessary to pass the muster. Among those are that tournaments must be 72 holes, must have a cut and must have at least 70 players in the field. LIV doesn’t meet any of those requirements.

But there are examples of other tournaments that currently award world ranking points that fail those same measures. The Hero World Challenge, hosted by Tiger Woods, and the PGA Tour’s Tour Championship are just two examples. Those exceptions have been passed by the board on a case-by-case basis.

Even if the board does allow LIV to start handing out world ranking points, it may take some time for it is enacted. Typically, it can be more than a year before it’s put into action. That could mean it might not be until 2024 when LIV Golf gets to hand out points.

For the time being, the LIV golfers remain confident.

"I believe when the time comes, we'll have world ranking here,” said Patrick Reed. “This is going to be a tour that's going to be around forever, and at the end of the day, you play well, you're in the big events."

“We have a lot of really strong players, and we're playing really good golf courses, and I feel like I know they're trying everything that they can to get world ranking points for us,” added Abraham Ancer. “So, I think it's a big deal. You know, we all want to play the best tournaments in the world, in majors and win trophies, and I feel like there's really no difference."