The bottom Line Up Front is a great “rift” in the professional golf world has been caused by the establishment in 2022 of the LIV (54) golf tour that is funded by the Public Investment Fund which is the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia. The “54” stands for the number of holes LIV tournaments consist of and also the number of players who typically play in the tournaments.
At the center of what became myriad controversies was Australian great Greg Norman. The main issue is the establishment of a separate professional golf tour funded by the Saudis with obscene offers of guaranteed money that targeted hiring away through contracts the top-best-players of the more established tours such as the Professional Golf Association (PGA) in the US and the DP tour in Europe (so named for sponsorship reasons explained by their “Race to Dubai” season ending championship,) as well as tours in Korea, Japan, Asia and around the world.
The fans have been the losers in this tawdry display of the importance of money in a golfing world dominated by money, where the best golfers were already doing very well indeed. But their earnings-despite being greatly elevated in recent years-are performance based and not guaranteed (not counting clothes, clubs and shoe endorsements.) Earnings also truly pale in comparison to the major professional sports in America and the world such as soccer, rugby, football, baseball, basketball, etc. (given that pro golfers truly are-in effect-individual contractors.)
LIV changed that with money up front. The PGA Tour technically does that with marketing royalties from television, cable, brand and myriad other facets of the tour. LIV literally just paid players to join.
What is a mother to do? Well, it’s been three years of negotiations between LIV and the PGA Tour in particular and we are no closer to a solution that will bring the top golfers in the world into competition with each other more frequently; that is what the fans want to see happen, particularly for the top American LIV golfers, including Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Kepka and Dustin Johnson.
We will get to the details later, but here is a high-level compromise and proposal to shoot for, with the details to be worked out later. Since LIV insists on having innovative but non-standard, shortened golf tournaments that are not recognized by the prevailing golf ruling bodies, these events should/will-under the recommendation-qualify for partial award of the nominal Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) points awarded for standard tournaments which is based on an evaluation of the field strength of the competition.
The PGA Tour has similar somewhat compromised tournaments represented by their Signature Series that have only ~70 players and a modified cut approach. Despite less than “full competitive fields” and guaranteed purses in contrast with the standards of championship golf, these fields benefit by having international players who frequent the PGA Tour events and also many of the non-LIV top players. LIV players could play in these events if their OWGR points were high enough, but they don’t participate in sufficient events to qualify based on the PGA Tour merit system.
The standard for Championship golf-particularly in the majors-consists of 72 holes of golf contested at stroke play with typical fields of ~156 players competing under similar conditions where a cut is established to trim the field roughly in half for weekend play. In most tournaments the convention is that players who miss the cut receive nothing. Some offer $3-5K to cover partial expenses: not all tours or tournaments follow this plan. Tournaments that meet those criteria qualify for the award of 100% of the calculated field award for OWGR points, in fact they are weighted because of the strength of the fields.
Any event that is restricted from any standpoint, such as a limited field, modified or no cuts/or guaranteed purses, only open to certain golfers for whatever reason, should be calculated for OWGR units according to something like the following criteria (these are potentially additive.)
Limited field events (70 or 54 players) without a cut should be decremented 10% of the otherwise qualified OWGR points regardless of the strength of the field
A limited field event with a custom cut (arbitrary 10 or 20 players) should receive a 10% decrement
If there is a guaranteed purse there should be a 10% decrement (e.g., all players receive some money)
If there is a team event ongoing simultaneously with the individual play there should be a 10% decrement
The above applies to all tours and all tournaments. Bonus OWGR points can be awarded much like is done in other competitions when the strength of the field is unusually strong, such as the four majors and the Tournament Players Championship (TPC) or any event that reaches-for instance-the strength of the majors.
A criterion that should not be considered in the mix is money: LIV took that component off the table as a valid criterion-and the PGA Tour is following suit with its modified format Signature Events with elevated and guaranteed purses.
The DP Tour should be similarly graded, as should all other tours around the world. The end of season traditional tour championships are all somewhat special cases because of the mandated participation points awarded as tour-based loyalty recognition throughout the season. Once the OWGR reflects totals encompassing each of the tours and their specific limiting calculations, this issue should take care of itself.
Separate tours can create criteria-which is already largely in place-to encourage competition within their tours. This will be problematic with LIV’s Team concept that combines the elements of shortened events, limited fields, no cuts, guaranteed purses and a team competition concurrent with an individual competition. However, there can be incentives to expand the field and include “challenge teams” from the other tours periodically to spice things up, but those and other execution details would follow after a basic agreement to fix the all-important OWGR conundrum is achieved.
Note that as tours achieve commonality in policy for the conduct of tournaments, the decrements will cancel out. Leaving only the substantive differences as discriminators. But also note that the more money is used as an incentive the less useful it is as a discriminator in the OWGR.
There is somewhat of a bias in even this approach because if the bulk of the top players are playing on the top 3 tours (PGA, DP and LIV) it is very difficult for the smaller, regional tours to participate fairly in the OWGR. That and myriad other issues must be addressed to continue the golfing objective of truly becoming a “World Tour” that has been somewhat of the altruistic stretch goal for the PGA Tour-in particular-for several decades to incentivize participation in the sport.
My recommendation is not perfect, but it does get things going in the right direction and the smart people who are working on these things can easily establish a dead certain and agreeable criteria that is equitable to the players while recognizing that you make choices and there are consequences; we have handicaps in golf to foster competition between players of varying skillsets and this is no different.
We don’t have to punish or acknowledge-shame or hate-on players who are doing their best and can’t be blamed for going where the circumstances are best for them and their family’s welfare, notwithstanding that guaranteed money in golf somewhat undermines the legacy of professional golf. While team golf during the play of tournaments somewhat undermines the spirit and basis of the competition.
You can make the case-the argument-that the PGA Tour-in particular-already went down this road with expanded paydays, the original 125 player exempt tour, and on steroids to infinity with the 70 player Signature Events with no cuts and the excessive/obscene final payday represented by the Tour Championship/FEDEX Cup. Note there is a PGA Tour event played at the same time as the Signature Events for those who don’t qualify. The same OWGR adjustments made for that event can serve as somewhat of a model.
That is my rather simplistic proposal. The players who were in effect hired away by LIV through highly incentivized contracts (the big bucks) willingly traded the uncertainty of future pay days with their current tours performance-based reward system and clarity on their status vis a vis the OWGR for the wild west. They made that choice fully understanding the problematic issues facing LIVs tournament format that did not qualify under the existing OWGR.
Whether they were promised or teased with the potential for breakthrough future agreements or not-sold a bill of goods-these are grown people who made choices and took the risk and were well compensated-up front-for doing so. Any hurt feelings or regrets should be addressed with the LIV leadership through discussions and lawsuits; they are not owed a solution to a problem of their own making.
Even sympathetic figures like Phil Mickelson who likely traded away his almost certain Ryder Cup or President’s Cup Captaincy for money; he’s a big boy, he made choices, suck it up.
Also, in a fairly new wrinkle to the ongoing debate, Trevor Immelman is the President of the OWGR (as of April 2025.) He is a well-known, likeable, well-spoken and well thought of international player. I expect renewed vigor and integrity to be brought back to the negotiations between the PGA Tour and LIV, as well as the R&A and USGA, and the DP Tour. Particularly given the recent end of Greg Norman’s involvement which has been viewed by many as “toxic,” as evidenced by his exclusion from many of the ceremonial aspects offered to Open (British) Champions.
Max Dribbler
15 July 2025
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