LIV Golf has deficiencies in its application for Official World Golf Ranking points, and the second-year tour was expected to be informed of its ongoing shortcomings early this week, Global Golf Post has learned.
The decision was reached by the OWGR board meeting last week in Augusta, Georgia, during the Masters Tournament.
LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman, a two-time major champion who was not invited to the Masters, was to have received a letter outlining the Saudi-funded rival tour’s shortcomings with the OWGR in its bid for world-ranking points, which are crucial in elite players’ attempts to qualify for the game’s top tournaments. Foremost among those deficiencies: LIV plays 48-man, 54-hole, no-cut events, falling short of the norm among the 72-hole, full-field events on major pro tours that merit OWGR points.
OWGR officials said that LIV’s deficiencies must be addressed before the tour is to begin receiving points. Meanwhile, many LIV players, who have been denied access to PGA Tour events and face banishment from the DP World Tour because of a recent arbitration ruling in the U.K., are in rankings free fall as the process grinds on.
LIV Golf also went 0-for-3 last week in key legal decisions on both sides of the Atlantic in the rival tour’s fight with golf’s establishment.
Judge Beth Labson Freeman, outwardly frustrated with a lack of compliance by LIV Golf regarding key documentation and subpoena requests in its federal antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour, vacated the January 8, 2024 trial date while declining to schedule a new date. Freeman, who is presiding over LIV Golf’s lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Northern California, told attorneys in a testy exchange via a Zoom videoconference: “I’m not setting a trial. It’s vacated, and I will now look at my schedule when I can hear all of your motions. It may be two years from now,” according to an account reported by Alex Miceli in Sports Illustrated. The PGA Tour had been seeking a trial delay in its effort for more discovery. READ MORE
The Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia and its governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, were ordered to submit to the PGA Tour’s request for discovery in LIV Golf’s antitrust lawsuit, a federal judge ruled, upholding a previous decision by a magistrate judge in denying LIV’s claim for sovereign immunity. The PIF and Al-Rumayyan were added as co-defendants in the lawsuit when the PGA Tour filed a countersuit. READ MORE
The DP World Tour won a favorable decision from a London arbiter against LIV Golf players from the former European Tour. A three-person panel with Sport Resolutions ruled that the DP World Tour can enforce its fines and suspensions levied against the defectors, whose appeals to compete on the rival tour last year were denied. The defectors had been allowed to play DP World Tour events pending the binding decision by Sport Resolutions, which ruled that CEO Keith Pelley “acted entirely reasonably in refusing releases.” In a statement issued by the DP World Tour, Pelley said his tour’s actions were “fair and proportionate.” READ MORE
TAP-INS
The United States team of Nelly Korda, Lexi Thompson, Lilia Vu and Danielle Kang drew the No. 1 seeding for the Hanwha Lifeplus International Crown based on the event’s standings as of April 3, the LPGA announced. The eight-team match-play event, which also will feature the top four women on the Rolex Rankings from South Korea, Japan, Sweden, England, Thailand, Australia and China, will be played May 4-7 at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco. READ MORE
The greatest recovery shot of the week did not occur in Augusta, Georgia, during the Masters. It happened across the country, in Indio, California, when Brett Fox of Simi Valley, who was competing in the Southern California Golf Association’s Amateur Net Championship, rescued a driver from a vehicle that had veered into a canal near Terra Lago Golf Resort. Fox not only sprang into action and saved a life but, given some time by tournament officials to towel off and change clothes, finished his round, according to a report by Larry Bohannan in the Desert Sun of Palm Springs. READ MORE
Ángel Cabrera, the former Masters and U.S. Open champion who did not appear at Augusta National last week because he is serving time in his native Argentina relating to two domestic-violence convictions, wants to resume his golf career, longtime coach Charlie Epps told Adam Pengilly of The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia. Cabrera, 53, is in a halfway house and could be released this summer, Epps said. READ MORE
Compiled by Steve Harmon