While Latest OWGR Setback, Does Greg Norman Led LIV Golf Really Have a Way Out?

Besides the merger, there is one more issue on the radar of LIV Golf that did not come to a positive end. The LIV Golfers are more than worried about slipping ranks and to add to their woes the board committee unanimously denied their request.

It was been a long while since they put up a plea with the OWGR to grant ranks to their league but there has been no positive response. Now with such negative results, CEO Greg Norman is forced to look for different options. Here are three other ranking systems that LIV Golf could prefer.

Other substitutes for player ranking LIV can use

Currently, OWGR is the standard by which all golfers and their performances are measured. But it is no longer serving the Saudi league. The ranks of their players who couldn’t play in this year’s major championships have sunk drastically. If the OWGR doesn’t approve soon then there are a few options for LIV Golf.

First is The Universal Golf Rankings (TUGR). They claim that they accurately rank players who have never played against each other and are inclusive of all tours and all players. Rather than a point-based system they have a performance-based ranking system.

They gather the head-to-head and player-to-player scores over the last 18 months. Bringing transparency into the process they only select players who have played a minimum of 20 rounds. Another good option for ranking is The Data Golf Rankings. Here the ranking of the players is determined by averaging the field-strength adjusted scores of each golfer across professional and amateur tournaments.

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The more recent rounds receive more weight in the competition. The DG Index is this weighted average and could be interpreted as an expectation for a golfer’s next performance, in units of strokes gained relative to an average PGA Tour field. But to be included in the rankings, a golfer must have played at least 40 rounds in the last 2 years and at least 1 round in the last 6 months.

Sports Illustrated has also issued its own ranking system

Earlier this year Sports Illustrated used data from all tours and an improved formula from their partners at Golf Intelligence to calculate and rank the top players in men’s golf. So there is also the third option of that. Instead, the SIWGR uses 12 months of player data. They are also soon launching a women’s golf ranking.

All these bodies already rank LIV Players and it’s an event that has a good position on these platforms. I’m the absence of OWGR the Saudi could definitely go for them.

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