Main championships ought to change their qualification guidelines to open the door for extra LIV gamers in line with 2020 US Open champ Bryson DeChambeau, who referred to as the rejection for world rankings factors “unhappy”.
On Wednesday it was confirmed the LIV request to realize official world rating factors for his or her 54-hole, no-cut, team-based occasions had been formally rejected, closing the door on the majors for almost all of gamers on the Saudi-backed tour.
Some, together with Australian Cameron Smith and DeChambeau, have exemptions that safe their locations within the Masters, British Open and US Open and PGA for the instant future courtesy of their latest main wins.
However the majority of LIV’s gamers, who joined the breakaway tour for assured cash each match and massive sign-on bonuses, have slipped down the world rankings over the previous two years and out of main qualification.
There are solely two gamers, Smith and Brooks Koepka, inside the highest 50 and solely 5 of the 48 gamers with LIV within the high 100.
Forward of the second final LIV occasion of the season in Jeddah, the place Smith and DeChambeau are each within the working to safe the $28m bonus for successful the season-long particular person title, the American stated he would really like golf officers to seek out “one other approach” to combine LIV gamers into majors.
“I feel at this time limit, now that they’re not permitting it, we’d love to seek out one other strategy to be built-in into the most important championship system since I feel we have now a number of the greatest gamers on the earth,” he stated.
“Prime 12 on the record, the cash record, on the finish of the 12 months or the factors record on the finish of the 12 months, can be, I feel, apparent for the most important championships to host the very best gamers on the earth at these 4 occasions annually.
“It‘s actually unhappy that they’ve finished that.”
DeChambeau was as soon as ranked as excessive as No.4 on the earth and is now No. 132 even after tying for fourth on the PGA Championship and twentieth on the US Open.
He stated the gamers who crossed to LIV knew what they signed up for however, as a vocal critic of the present rankings system, was adamant LIV had modified the sport for the higher.
“Individuals are going to say that it’s unhappy that we came to visit right here,” DeChambeau stated.
“However it’s like, look, that is a tremendous alternative for each one in all us. I feel we’ve advised that narrative fairly a bit, and we need to proceed to vary and develop the sport in locations like Saudi Arabia, like Singapore, like Australia, quite a few locations we’ve all been all through this 12 months, and we’re going to proceed to take action over the course of time.”
LEADING LIV PLAYERS WORLD RANKINGS
15 – Cameron Smith
18 – Brooks Koepka
62 – Patrick Reed
64 – Joaquin Niemann
92 – Abraham Ancer
110 – Phil Mickelson
121- Dustin Johnson
132 – Bryson DeChambeau