LIV Golf loses ranking points

London — LIV The Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) organization said on Thursday that golfers will not get world ranking points for the event in Bangkok this week or the tournament in Jeddah later this month.

The Saudi-backed LIV Series has not yet been awarded ranking points, but the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) Tour stated on Wednesday that players at the next two tournaments will be awarded ranking points as a result of a strategic alliance between the circuits.

The top 50 ranked players automatically qualify for all four major competitions.

OWGR stated that it was not given adequate warning and that a decision on whether to award ranking points will be made only after a review.

At 2.05 p.m. on Wednesday, the organization got a correspondence from the MENA Tour outlining “major changes” to its membership structure as well as a description of the inaugural set of tournaments for the 2022-23 season.

“OWGR observes that the first two tournaments in this series appeared identical to the LIV Golf Invitational Series tournaments in Bangkok and Jeddah,” the organization said in a statement.

“The MENA Tour’s message contained a starting field data file for the Bangkok tournament, verifying that this is the fact.

“The OWGR is now conducting an assessment of the MENA Tour’s changes.

“The MENA Tour’s notification of these modifications is insufficient for the OWGR to complete the standard evaluation prior to the LIV Golf Invitational Bangkok (Friday-Sunday) and the LIV Golf Invitational Jeddah” (next Friday-Sunday).

“Only when the review is complete will a decision be made regarding the awarding of points to the new ‘Limited Field Tournaments’ on the MENA Tour.”

The MENA Tour has been inactive since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out in 2020.

LIV has already held five tournaments in its debut season, but without awarding any ranking points to its participants, including Open champion Cameron Smith, former world number one Dustin Johnson, and six-time major champion Phil Mickelson.

The PGA Tour has blacklisted golfers from the dissident circuit, preventing American golfers from qualifying for the 2023 Ryder Cup.

European stars that left for LIV, such as Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, and Sergio Garcia, have all fallen in the world rankings and are unlikely to make Luke Donald’s side for the biennial competition held near Rome.