The debate over how major championships are constructed in the future has not died down following the Masters. Phil Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau, who are playing LIV Singapore this week following a successful trip to Australia, have particularly strong views about the Official World Golf Rankings and how fields are put together for majors in the future. Considering they just finished T2 at Augusta and are past major winners themselves, their demand for inclusion is understandable.
“It’s going to all iron itself out because if you’re one of the majors, if you’re the Masters, you’re not looking at ‘We should keep these guys out,'” said Mickelson, per Sports Illustrated. “You’re saying to yourself, ‘We want to have the best field, we want to have the best players, and these guys added a lot to the tournament this year at the Masters. How do we get them included?'”
Augusta National, the USGA, the PGA of America and the R&A all helped form the OWGR (along with the PGA Tour and European Tour), and heretofore that organization has not allowed LIV players to earn OWGR points because the league and its tournaments do not meet the standards laid out by the OWGR.
This obviously creates some problems when, for example, Brooks Koepka’s exemption into the Masters runs out in 2025, and one of the great champions of his generation is not allowed to play in the first major of the year. Some might say, well, those are the consequences of your actions, which is true; it’s also maybe not that simple for the major championship organizations, which are attempting to host the best events they possibly can.
“We have to come up with a qualifying mechanism that is inclusive, and if the World Golf Ranking isn’t going to be inclusive, then they have to find another way,” added Mickelson. “Maybe they take the top five or top 10 or winners of LIV, but they’re going to have to find a way to get the best LIV players in their field if they want to have the best field in golf and be really what major championship is about. So they’re already looking at that.
“If the World Golf Rankings doesn’t find a way to be inclusive, then the majors will just find another way to include LIV because it’s no longer a credible way,” he continued. “So it will all iron itself out for the simple reason that it’s in the best interest of everybody, especially the tournaments, the majors, to have the best players.”
The major organizations obviously don’t have to do anything, but what Mickelson proposed is not unreasonable. Prior to the OWGR’s existence in the 1980s, major fields were constructed by using money lists from different tours from around the world. You could dial in the accuracy a bit more with statistically advanced sites like Data Golf, but functionally this would work the same. (It’s worth noting that both Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka ranked outside the top 100 in Data Golf’s world ranking — which is inclusive of LIV events — a few weeks before the Masters, and Phil Mickelson ranked outside the top 300.)
“You should realize that the OWGR is not accurate, one,” said DeChambeau. “Two, I think that they need to come to a resolution or it will become obsolete. It’s pretty much almost obsolete as of right now. But, again, if the majors and everything continue to have that as their ranking system, then they are biting it quite heavily.”
“Yeah, what he’s [DeChambeau] saying is right,” added two-time major winner and Range Goats captain, Bubba Watson. “The first part that he said about if D.J., Cam Smith, Brooks, Bryson, are not in the field, then you’re not … playing the best players in the world, right? You could sit here and name all 48, right? You could sit here and name everybody. Those aren’t the best in the world. If you’re saying these tournaments are the best in the world, you’ve got to have the best there.
“To keep them out or to make them lose World Ranking points is not the right way to go,” Watson continued. “I’ve said it, and I’m going to say it again: I believe we’ve just got to focus on the tours and our league, and the top players. If that means the PGA Tour gets 60 to 75 guys from there to be in every major, great. And if that means 10 to 15 of our guys, at the end of the year, whoever has the most points get in the majors, great. Forget World Ranking points, just who is the best in your tour and our league and go from there.”
These are all interesting concepts and ideas, and it will be fascinating to see where the majors go from here. At the Masters earlier this month, Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley was asked about pathways for players to get into the Masters. Augusta National noted that it will invite PGA Tour players who win in the fall to its tournament, but with the OWGR now proportionately rewarding the best tours, you end up with a very PGA Tour-centric field:
Question: Has there been any consideration for other pathways for some other world tours, like Europe or Japan, to get in other than just the World Rankings?
Ridley: Yeah, we actually have discussed that, and that may well be something we do in the future. We really want to make sure that the Masters Tournament field is representative of the best players in the world, so we are constantly looking at those possibilities. Our conclusion for the time being is that the Official World Golf Rankings, it’s a really good way to invite players. It’s an objective criteria based on data-driven analytics, and it’s consistently applied. I think most would agree it’s a good system.
This is a thought-provoking answer because it theoretically opens the door for a league like LIV. If you provide non-OWGR pathways for other leagues, then LIV has a real case. If you stick to the OWGR (and other criteria like past champions), then it does not.
Regardless, this will be fascinating to follow, especially as the major championships gain even more importance and weight in a fractured golf world. Who plays in those majors and who wins those majors will matter more than it ever has, which means that this discussion is one of the most important in the golf world at the present time.