(Washington) LIV players, financially supported by Saudi Arabia and whose emergence is fracturing the world of golf, have demanded the retroactive consideration of points they believe they have gleaned in the events of this circuit, from the world ranking committee.
Posted at 2:29 p.m.
“A world ranking without players who are members of the LIV would be incomplete and inaccurate”, they argued in a letter addressed to the president of the appropriate committee, Peter Dawson, estimating that this situation would be comparable to an exclusion of England, Argentina and Belgium, from the FIFA rankings.
In this letter, the 48 signatories who participated in the Chicago tournament last weekend, including the winner, the Australian Cameron Smith (N.3) and the American Dustin Johnson, former world N.1, request the allocation of points resulting from the 54-hole (three rounds) tournaments in which they participate, in the same way as the other 72-hole (four rounds) tournaments organized by the North American PGA Tour.
The challenge for these golfers is that the points accumulated allow them to qualify for the Grand Slam tournaments. They were cleared to compete in the US Open and British Open (won by Cameron Smith) this year, with the LIV circuit set up after those two Majors.
“The level of competition at a LIV Tour tournament is at least equal to that of a PGA event,” players say. “We know that because we’ve been in both. »
The letter points out that the LIV counts among its participants 21 of the last 51 major winners and notes Johnson’s fall from the 13e at the 22e place in the world rankings, despite a victory, a second place and a third place in the last events of this new circuit.
“We ask that you make a positive decision quickly — in the interest of the integrity of the rankings, the game, and all of us who love the sport,” they concluded.