19th Hole
Report: The ‘primary issue’ why LIV Golf has yet to receive ranking points
LIV Golf and the OWGR ranking points system — a saga that looks as if it may never end.
Within the last year or so, we’ve had the Greg Norman-led tour create a “strategic alliance” with the third-tier MENA Tour, something Atul Khosla, the then President and COO of LIV Golf, said was, “to create pathways that give more opportunities for young players, while also giving fans rankings that include all the world’s best golfers.”
Within a few days, high-ranking PGA Tour players joined in with their views, with 2021 Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama amongst those believing those that had left the PGA and DPWT tours “should be able to.”
However, for all the camaraderie, Deki, alongside Rory McIlroy, and Viktor Hovland agreed with the latter’s statement, “They [LIV] obviously have to follow the process, whatever the process might be.”
Confused?
Amongst the broken rules of the “process” seemed to be the shotgun starts and the 54-hole style of tournament, something that was negated once the OWGR, the leading golf rankings organization, awarded ranking points to the three-round Gira de Golf Professional de Mexicana at the turn of the year.
The move understandably irked LIV, particularly just a few weeks after Norman had said
“I understand they have a process. I get all that. But the OWGR was never prepared for a new entity like LIV Golf. You have to expect the unexpected sometimes. When somebody comes along with an incredible business model that is working and, as we’ve shown, you’ve got to have that flexibility and adaptability to allow a new entity coming along.”
“OWGR was never, ever ready for that type of approach.”
Of course, all LIV players have given their opinion, and understandably have attacked the OWGR for its continual refusal to at least acknowledge the winners of their events.
Last week, Phil Mickelson, the first golfer to sign for LIV all those months ago, gave a passionate response to Colt Knost’s question as to why the tour just didn’t simply meet the OWGR criteria from the start.
“Colt, it is not our job,” wrote the six-time major champion. “It is the OWGR’s job to rank ALL the players in the world. Maybe they can do THEIR job and figure it out like they do for multiple tours with hundreds of players not even close to as good.But that would hurt the PGA’s revenue from CBS so the leaders won’t.”
Then just a week ago, Firepit Collective contributor, Alan Shipnuck, suggested that the lines between the PGA and LIV tours were becoming blurred and that ranking points are almost certain to be awarded soon. Somehow. If they meet a criteria, I guess.
In his Ask Alan column, the author of the unauthorized biography of Phil Mickelson stated that, in his opinion, “An extra round gives the best player more opportunity to separate himself, but 54 holes has a certain urgency and demands three good scores with little room for error.”
Indeed, he states, “Next year, nine of the 12 elevated events won’t have a cut, which means…more guaranteed money for the players. So the LIV and Tour products are becoming increasingly similar.”
As for ranking LIV players,
“The OWGR had a set of pre-established criteria, and the governing board is following it to the letter. July will be one year since LIV put in its application,” and that, having spoken to those at the top,
“the primary issue is that LIV doesn’t meet the average field size of 75.”
That shouldn’t stop points being awarded, however, as “the ranking itself will automatically penalize LIV, based on the revised algorithm—announced in August 2021, before LIV had launched—that favors full fields over smaller one.”
Shipnuck explains how the “major championships control the OWGR,” and “are inherently selfish and want what’s best for their respective tournaments.”
The official list simply makes no sense as a barometer of where a player is ranked, which is why we see the likes of LIV points leader Talor Gooch – one of the hottest players in the game – fall from 57th to 63rd despite consecutive wins at LIV Adelaide and LIV Singapore.
More and more pundits and fans are turning to Data Golf to rank the players in order of current ability, a site on which Gooch ranks 27th, two behind Dustin Johnson, 81st on the OWGR.
Shipnuck concludes that things will soon have to aline:
“A more inclusive OWGR is the only thing that makes sense. Anti-LIV folks can get hung up on specific wording in the moldy criteria of the OWGR bylaws, but these are unprecedented times and a little flexibility is the best path forward…especially for the OWGR, which will render itself obsolete if it doesn’t follow its mission to rank all professional golfers.”
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19th Hole
‘Don’t think I’ll sleep well tonight’ – LPGA pro offers candid take following rough AIG Women’s Open finish
An opening round of 77 left LPGA pro Jenny Shin with a mountain to climb at last week’s AIG Women’s Open.
However, fighting back with rounds of 69 and 67, Shin found herself six shots off the lead and just outside the top 10 heading into Sunday as she went in search of her first major victory.
Shin, who won the US Girls’ Junior at just 13, couldn’t back those rounds up on Sunday, though, and after playing her opening nine holes of the final round in level par, she then bogeyed three holes coming home to slip down the leaderboard and eventually finish T23.
Taking to X following the final round, Shin offered a frustrated and honest take on how she was feeling, posting: “Don’t think I’ll sleep well tonight. What a crappy way to finish.”
Don’t think I’ll sleep well tonight. What a crappy way to finish
— Jenny Shin (@JennyShin_LPGA) August 3, 2025
Shin has made 11 cuts in 13 starts on the LPGA Tour this season, but has been plagued by frustrating Sunday finishes throughout the year. Shin ranks 102nd on tour this year out of 155 for Round 4 scoring in 2025.
Miyu Yamashita won the 2025 AIG Women’s Open with a composed final round of 70 to win her first major of her career by two strokes.
Cameron Young won the Wyndham Championship on Sunday for his first victory on the PGA Tour.
Young dominated all weekend at TPC Sedgefield, running away from the pack to win by six strokes and put himself in contention for a Ryder Cup pick in September.
Ahead of the event, the 28-year-old switched to a Pro V1x prototype golf ball for the first time, following recent testing sessions with the Titleist Golf Ball R&D team.
Interestingly, Young played a practice round accompanied by Fordie Pitts, Titleist’s Director of Tour Research & Validation, at TPC Schedule early last week with both his usual Pro V1 Left Dot ball and the new Pro V1x prototype.
Per Titleist, by the second hole Young was exclusively hitting shots with the Pro V1x prototype.
“We weren’t sure if he was going to test it this week, but as he was warming up, he asked to hit a couple on the range,” Pitts said. “He was then curious to see some shots out on the course. Performance-wise, he was hitting tight draws everywhere. His misses were staying more in play. He hit some, what he would call ‘11 o’clock shots,’ where again he’s taking a little something off it. He had great control there.”
According to Titleist, the main validation came on Tuesday on the seventh hole of his practice round. The par 3 that played between 184 and 225 yards during the tournament called for a 5-iron from Young, or so he thought. Believing there was “no way” he could get a 6-iron to the flag with his Left Dot, Young struck a 5-iron with the Pro V1x prototype and was stunned to see the ball land right by the hole.
“He then hits this 6-iron [with the Pro V1x prototype] absolutely dead at the flag, and it lands right next to the pin, ending up just past it,” Pitts said. “And his response was, ‘remarkable.’ He couldn’t believe that he got that club there.”
Following nine holes on Tuesday and a further nine on Wednesday, Young asked the Titleist team to put the ProV1x balls in his locker. The rest, as they say, is history.
Rickie Fowler fired an opening round of one-under par on Thursday at the Wyndham Championship, as the Californian looks to make a FedEx Cup playoff push.
Fowler is currently 61st in the standings, so will need a strong couple of weeks to extend his season until the BMW Championship, where only the top 50 in the standings will tee it up.
Heading into the final stretch of the season, Fowler has made an equipment switch of note, changing into new iron shafts, as well as making a switch to his driver shaft.
The 36-year-old revealed this week that he has switched from his usual KBS Tour C-Taper 125-gram steel shafts to the graphite Aerotech SteelFiber 125cw shafts in his Cobra King Tour irons, a change he first put into play at last month’s Travelers Championship.
Speaking on the change to reporters this week, Fowler made note that the graphite shafts offer “something that’s a little easier on the body.”
“I mean, went to the week of Travelers, so been in for, I guess that’s a little over a month now. Something that’s a little easier on the body and seemed to get very similar numbers to where I was at. Yeah, it’s gone well so far.”
Fowler has also made a driver shaft change, switching out his Mitsubishi Diamana WB 73 TX for a UST Mamiya Lin-Q Proto V1 6 TX driver shaft in his Cobra DS-Adapt X, which he first implemented a couple of weeks ago at the John Deere Classic.
However, according to Fowler himself, the testing and potential changes are not done yet.
“Probably do some more testing in some different weight configurations with them once I get some time. Yeah, I feel like we’re always trying to search, one, to get better but are there ways to make things easier, whether that’s physically, mentally, whatever it may be. So yeah, I thought they were good enough to obviously put into play and looking forward to doing some more testing.”
Fowler gets his second round at TPC Sedgefield underway at 7.23 a.m ET on Friday.
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