Tiger Woods may not have played on the PGA Tour in a while, but he shot up the world rankings after making a comeback at the season-ending Hero World Challenge.
While Tiger Woods was able to fully exploit the system at the end of the 2023 season, LIV Golf was left frustrated by their Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) snub.
After having to withdraw from the Masters last year due to an ankle injury, Woods played in just three events this season, finishing only two of them. After more than seven months of being sidelined due to that injury, he was able to compete again at the Hero World Challenge in November of last year.
He hit a career low in the world rankings during his recent extended absence from the PGA Tour, arriving in the Bahamas at the end of the previous year outside the top 1,200 players.
He faced some of the world’s most accomplished players and finished 18th out of 20 when he returned, so it was understandable that he still had some rust on his game. Even with his lackluster performance, Woods was nevertheless given a significant boost in the world rankings.
Owing to the ranking points awarded at the PGA Tour event with a small field, Woods’s 18th-place finish propelled him up an astounding 430 spots, regaining his position inside the top 900. His leap coincided with a critical moment for the OWGR, as LIV Golf is still awaiting ranking system recognition.
Even though the breakaway league’s fields include some of the greatest players on the planet, it is unable to award world ranking points to its rivals, which has caused players like Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau to fall in the rankings. Less than two months after LIV’s most recent OWGR application was turned down, Woods had a spectacular rise.
The decision infuriated LIV bosses, who responded with a harsh statement that severely questioned the validity of the rankings. “The only goal of OWGR is to rank the top players worldwide. A statement from last October stated, “Today’s communication makes clear that it can no longer deliver on that objective.”
“There is currently no real, worldwide scoring or ranking system in professional golf. Fans or players stand to gain nothing from a lack of trust or clarity as long as the best player performances remain unacknowledged.” Greg Norman, the CEO of LIV, rekindled his beef with OWGR just this week.
Norman used social media to draw attention to the fact that LIV only had five players ranked in the top 50 worldwide, three of whom were new additions in the form of Jon Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton, and Adrian Meronk. During his outburst, Norman slammed the ranking list once more, calling the ongoing LIV snub “laughable.”
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