The Official World Golf Rankings announced Wednesday that players on the LIV Golf tour will not receive rankings points. That severely affects their ability to qualify for the four majors.
Phil Mickelson has contentious exchange with golf reporter amid LIV denial by OWGR
Mickelson is the latest LIV Golf player to voice his disdain for the OWGR as he and a golf reporter argued on Twitter about the whole situation.
Photo by Andrew Redington/Getty Images
After the news broke, players like Bryson DeChambeau spoke out against the OWGR, instead suggesting they alter how they award points for LIV Golf.
Cameron Smith and Dustin Johnson also voiced their displeasure with the announcement.
Former PGA Tour player and current golf analyst Trevor Immelman took to social media to express his thoughts.
“If we’re going to start a pro golf tour, and I decided that I wanted my tour to have world ranking points available for the players, I’d probably at the outset make sure that my tour did whatever the world ranking organization required in order to comply,” Immelman wrote.
LIV Golf has 54-hole events, 18 less than PGA Tour events. The rival tour also has shotgun starts, no cuts and only 48-man fields. Those are some of the issues the OWGR cited when shooting down their application.
Phil Mickelson, who is never shy to speak his mind, replied to Immelman’s tweet and made some interesting allegations as to why his tour wouldn’t earn points.
“Trevor, LIV was NEVER going to get points,” Mickelson wrote. “Why? 1) it’s a monopoly run by all the governing bodies. 2) the PGA Tour tv contract is based on OWGR criteria for them to get all their money. 3) they would lose leverage in negotiations if LIV got points.”
“4) last but not least, Tour has BORROWED against the tv deal! If they don’t hit their bench marks and don’t get all their tv money(from CBS), they will have an immediate capital call. Don’t believe me? Ask Sean McManu,” Mickelson replied.
Immelman didn’t respond to Mickelson. Instead, CBS Sports’ respected golf reporter Kyle Porter did. The two of them then had a very contentious exchange back and forth.
“The major organizations (which voted) are incentivized to protect the financial interest of the Tour (which did not vote) *more* than they are incentivized to protect the quality of their own products,” Porter questioned Mickelson in response.
The 2021 PGA Championship winner couldn’t help himself — he had to respond to Porter.
“You mean the events that bring in 100’s and 100’s of millions but pay the players 12-15? They are protecting themselves as well,” Mickelson retaliated.
Porter didn’t back down either.
“Excluding LIV is not protecting themselves,” Porter explained. “It’s arguably worsening the qualify of their respective products (I’m more on your side here than you probably think). The OWGR excluding LIV is simply upholding a standard of uniformed governance, which I think most of us would say does actually matter for the global golf landscape.”
While Porter tried to suggest he was somewhat on the 53-year-old’s side, it didn’t really work.
Mickelson then felt he had to dumb it all down.
“I see I must go step by step to show how majors are protecting themselves,” Mickelson responded. “Owgr points given. THEN more and more players go to LIV. THEN, ultimately, all the best players are at LIV. LIV controls all the best players schedules.”
“LIV has leadership with players best interests at heart. LIV goes to majors and represents the players to negotiate a percentage more than 5% of revenues (fyi baseball, football, basketball are closer to 50%). Get it? Majors must keep division for them to keep this going.”
Lefty’s most recent retort doubles down on his take as to why he left the PGA Tour all along. He has firmly stated his belief that LIV supports players in ways the PGA Tour did not.
Yet, Porter surprisingly got the last word in the exchange.
“So ANGC [Augusta National Golf Club] is fearful of the LIV lawyers who called the Tour Championship the Super Bowl of golf and denied Jed Morgan his rightful OWGR points because of it. Got it (thumbs up emoji).”
He followed it up with one more tweet when Mickelson didn’t respond.
“(Also, I don’t disagree that the majors should pay players more),” Porter wrote.
Unlike a number of disappointed member of LIV, Mickelson clearly was not surprised by the latest OWGR development. You also aren’t going to change his mind as to why that happened, even if you have reasoning behind it as Porter did.
Nevertheless, it’s always fascinating following Mickelson and getting inside the psyche that is the Hall of Fame golfer.
Savannah Leigh Richardson is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. You can follow her on Twitter @SportsGirlSL and Instagram @savannah_leigh_sports for more golf coverage. Be sure to check out @_PlayingThrough too.
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