Jon Rahm has long voiced his disapproval of the Official World Golf Ranking. So, it was of little surprise that Rahm, a former world No. 1, discredited the system following news that LIV Golf would no longer be pursuing world-raking accreditation.
“I’m going to be honest, I didn’t know they were still trying to get world ranking points,” Rahm said Wednesday prior to LIV Hong Kong, which begins Friday. “But the one thing I can say is I’m going to back to what I said two years ago in the DP World Tour Championship. I didn’t think it was a good system back then. And if anything, the more time that goes on, the more it proves to be wrong.”
LIV first applied for world-ranking points in July 2022 and was officially denied last October with the OWGR citing several concerns, including LIV’s closed-shop qualification system and team element. During the application process, LIV also tried to earn points through an alliance with the Mena Tour, but that attempt was unsuccessful.
A month later, at the 2022 DP World Tour Championship, Rahm called the OWGR “laughable,” pointing mostly to what he felt with inflated strength of fields for PGA Tour events compared to DP World Tour tournaments with more top players.
Now, Rahm’s argument deals with LIV’s top players, most notably red-hot Joaquin Niemann, who is No. 76 despite two wins on LIV this year in addition to last December’s Australian Open victory. (Niemann has recently received special invites into the Masters and PGA Championship.)
“While we don’t have a clear path to majors through LIV yet, I think they should be taking everybody under consideration,” Rahm said. “If anybody in this world doesn’t think Joaco deserves to be in the top 10 or doesn’t know that he’s a top player in the world, I don’t know what game you’re watching. We can tell. I think anybody who watches golf can tell who the best players in the world are.
“Obviously, I don’t think the ranking is reflective of that right now to its entirety.”
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