OWGR chief Peter Dawson: LIV Golf set to learn ranking points fate

LIV Golf’s wait to find out if the league will gain access to Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) points will soon be over.

Peter Dawson, the chairman of the OWGR board, has told bunkered.co.uk that a decision is almost finalised on the Saudi-backed breakaway’s long application process for ranking points.

“We’re coming close to a conclusion on it and that’s all I can say,” Dawson said.

LIV’s ongoing battle to acquire ranking points has been a key bone of contention in its bid to gain legitimacy in the men’s professional game.

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Each LIV player signed an open letter to Dawson last September pleading for immediate inclusion into the system.

And huge frustration still lingers among players and officials over the accuracy of the current setup, which has seen former world No.1 and two-time major champion Dustin Johnson nosedive outside of the top 100 in the rankings.

But the OWGR board has stressed that any tour’s application process usually takes over a year, while there have been concerns over the integrity of LIV’s individual competition alongside a team format, as well as a recruitment process that could hamper its new merit-based qualifying system.

“We’ve had a lot of work to do with the rankings because the LIV format and some of the qualification criteria are very different to other tours that are part of the ranking,” Dawson, the former R&A chief executive of 16 years, added. 

“We have to be fair to everybody, not just the new guys but the other tours as well.”

Talks are still ongoing over the framework peace agreement between LIV, the PGA Tour and DP World Tour as the parties aim to thrash out a deal that will unite golf’s warring factions as one for-profit entity.

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Dawson has revealed that the OWGR committee are eagerly awaiting that outcome, which will dictate how the board operates going forward.

“[The application process] has gone on independently to the rankings discussion,” he explained. “The ranking board will be very interested in that outcome and the landscape of men’s professional golf.

“We will no doubt have to examine our criteria and what we do based on what they come up with. To be honest, I probably think they’ve got a bit of work to do but I’m not on the inside.”

Eyebrows were raised on Wednesday when it was confirmed that Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi Public Investment Fund bankrolling LIV, was playing in the DP World Tour’s Dunhill Links pro-am with R&A CEO Martin Slumbers after an invite from prime sponsor Johann Rupert.

The driving force behind Saudi’s venture into golf, Al-Rumayyan has masterminded LIV and is the boss of the enterprise’s CEO and commissioner Greg Norman.

And on Friday he will play at Carnoustie alongside Dawson, the man responsible for determining LIV’s ranking points fate.

“Yasir and the Saudi Public Investment Fund are putting a lot of money into the game and it is to be embraced and welcomed,” Dawson declared. “I look forward to meeting him, I’ve never spoken to him before.”

On Al-Rumayyan’s growing involvement in the game, Dawson added: “There’s clearly been some start up issues and it was very good to see the announcement that they’re trying to get together. I hope things get sorted out and they succeed.”

Ben Parsons joined bunkered as a Content Producer in 2023 and is the man to come to for all of the latest news, across both the professional and amateur games. Formerly of The Mirror and Press Association, he is a member at Halifax Golf Club and is a long-suffering fan of both Manchester United and the Wales rugby team.