D
Deleted member 29109
Guest
And a completely unbiased view.
LIV Golf
- Thread starter MarkT
- Start date
LincolnShep
Head Pro
Sorry, but if you can't see that there are comically blinkered views on both sides, it might be because you have blinkers on.
Swango1980
Well-known member
1. Because your not competing against a prime Brooks. And, to be fair, he used to even admit he only bothered bringing his A game to majors rather than standard PGAT events, so goodness knows what game he is bring to LIV
2. See No. 1
SteveW86
Head Pro
I'm just glad we are heading into the main golf season so that we wont all be sat inside with a lot of spare time on our hands to argue.....
LincolnShep
Head Pro
That must be tongue-in-cheek. Surely you're not arguing that Koepka, Smith, DJ, Bryson etc. are no longer some of the world's best golfers!
Swango1980
Well-known member
Isn't that just life in sport generally. Currently, the Premier League seems to attract many of the best players. Clubs in Spain still do OK, along with Bayern in Germany. But, how do clubs, generally, in Germany, Italy, France strengthen the field of their players, when the sport is geared to pushing players towards the biggest sides an a handful of selected countries? Not to mention other leagues across the world.
On one hand, it seems like people want a global tour with all the worlds best players. On the other hand, they want different tours to somehow get a fairly even spread of ranking points, and thus attract top players to different tours. Which is it? We pretty much had the worlds best players in the world all playing on the same tour. The only issue with that is that events were pretty much all played in the US.
If the European Tour want to compete with the PGAT in terms of getting stronger players, just handing them more ranking points is not going to do it. And, even if they did that, it would just be a charitable gesture. Because, the PGAT players are clearly better quality than the European Tour. So, if people think the current system is not fit for purpose, it would be an absolute joke if it just dished out higher points to weak players on European Tour, so that better players in America ended up ranked below many players they are better than. I suspect the European Tour know they'd be fighting a losing battle, as they simply don't have the resources or pulling power to become competitive with the PGAT. So, they effectively built relationships with the PGAT to help boost a few of their key events, while giving more of a global reach to the PGAT. But generally accept they are a feeder tour to PGAT
Swango1980
Well-known member
Yeah. As you know, I used to be one of the best golfers amongst our group. Now I'm average at best. It happens to the best of us
Slab
Occasional Tour Caddy
Your right of course, although its also saying the richest tour gets the most raking points as it attracts the strongest field
If the pgat had prize pots of 2mil and Asia tour events paid 15mil then I’d safely predict all the best players would be playing in Asia and therefore Asia tour events would get the most ranking points
Chicken and egg really, is the field the strongest because of the money or is the money highest because of the strength of the field
Then, probably believing the former, a startup comes along with even more money & asks for ranking points and gets hee haw
Its all a bit messy and likely wont settle down for a few more years
GB72
Money List Winner
But this is not how it used to be. The PGA Tour, to a certain extent, did exactly what LIV did, offered large amounts of cash to bring the strongest golfers of the other tours and reduce the other tours to their feeder status. It is all about the money. I actually think it is a disgrace that a tour with the history and traditional strength of the European tour has, at best, sleepwalked into feeder status and, at worst, actually helped it happen.
I am not sure that it is a case of 'which is it' I would love to see a totally global tour but, failing that, I would like to see a strong regional tours given a degree of parity with the PGA Tour.
Would be fascinated to see what would happen if the Saudi money was not invested in the PGA tour but rather was taken to set up a truely global tour offering big prize money to attract the best golfers in a system compliant with the World Ranking requirement. Just would be interested to see how many jumped ship for a rival tour that was offering more cash.
WGCRider
Newbie
I know the OWGR said they couldn't award points to LIV cause they said there was no way to calculate it. If you look at this you can see the issue.
The total OWGR points available are based on the strength of the field so to avoid argument right at the start lets assume the field is of similar strength to a PGA tour event (other tours are available). But we can come back to this.
The size of the field in a PGA tour varies but a good average is 144 players vs 48 in LIV. So on average a LIV event would have 1/3 of the OWGR points available to the field.
A player has 40 eligible events in the PGA tour (if they play more they don't count) - LIV has 14. So again the total of LIV events is roughly 1/3 of a PGA event.
In a PGA event all players contribute to the total points available but only half can earn points cause the field is cut.
If a PGA even is cut to 54 holes they still award full points. We also know from Leopard creak a few years ago that you don't loose points for playing in shorts.
So to take a worked example of an average tour event - the John Deere classic this year.
Based on the strength of the field 193.5 points were available.
Reduce this by a third cause of the size of a LIV field, reduce by a third again cause of the events available and then half because there is no jeopardy of a cut.
This means that the average LIV event would should award 10.8 points to the field. So the winner of a LIV event would get around 1.96pts or about the same as someone finishing 25th in a PGA tour event.
So I said we could come back to the strength of the field. I know LIV events are won by some of golf's big boys (Charl Schwartzel, Brandon Grace and Euginio Chacarra) so lets say the field is twice a strong so the winner get 3.9pts. Still the same as 10th place on a PGA tour event.
The total OWGR points available are based on the strength of the field so to avoid argument right at the start lets assume the field is of similar strength to a PGA tour event (other tours are available). But we can come back to this.
The size of the field in a PGA tour varies but a good average is 144 players vs 48 in LIV. So on average a LIV event would have 1/3 of the OWGR points available to the field.
A player has 40 eligible events in the PGA tour (if they play more they don't count) - LIV has 14. So again the total of LIV events is roughly 1/3 of a PGA event.
In a PGA event all players contribute to the total points available but only half can earn points cause the field is cut.
If a PGA even is cut to 54 holes they still award full points. We also know from Leopard creak a few years ago that you don't loose points for playing in shorts.
So to take a worked example of an average tour event - the John Deere classic this year.
Based on the strength of the field 193.5 points were available.
Reduce this by a third cause of the size of a LIV field, reduce by a third again cause of the events available and then half because there is no jeopardy of a cut.
This means that the average LIV event would should award 10.8 points to the field. So the winner of a LIV event would get around 1.96pts or about the same as someone finishing 25th in a PGA tour event.
So I said we could come back to the strength of the field. I know LIV events are won by some of golf's big boys (Charl Schwartzel, Brandon Grace and Euginio Chacarra) so lets say the field is twice a strong so the winner get 3.9pts. Still the same as 10th place on a PGA tour event.
Bdill93
Undisputed King of FOMO
Good point well made this...
GB72
Money List Winner
Good points but I look at it both ways. I actually think a calculation that would give a LIV tour win about the same ranking points as a 10th place finish on the PGA Tour would be about right. Certainly would not be worth the same as a PGA Tour win and maybe 10th is a little low. If it worked out that winning got the same points as 5th, second got the same points as 7th and third got the same points as 10th I think it would be about bob on.
wjemather
Well-known member
The OWGR letter explicitly stated that LIV could be accounted for mathematically.
Also, that isn't how OWGR calculations work. All the players SGWR and corresponding PP are available on the OWGR website - just add up the PP to get the field rating; for a LIV event it's currently a little over 105. How that would then possibly be adjusted (btw, no cut is irrelevant) and broken down is unknown, but first place would certainly be significantly more than 3.9.
Last edited:
Swango1980
Well-known member
Money is obviously a huge factor in attracting the elite, in any business, not just sport. Not the only factor mind. If the PGAT and European Tour started off on equal footing in terms of finances, then they may both do well in attracting similar quality fields, assuming the development of youngsters is similar in both continents. I suspect at one time, this was sort of true.
However, it is no secret that the USA has had much bigger commercial resources over the years, and that resulted in more and more top players from Europe moving across. Lifestyle is probably not too dissimilar, and maybe logistics are a bit easier within one country (albeit, the USA is massive, but do they group a lot of their tournaments together geographically, throughout the year?). So, it is no surprise that one tour would start to grow more than another, and as more and more top players move to one tour, so do the ranking points available.
I guess LIV has proved money is not everything. It is to a few, but to many it isn't worth the disadvantages to the lack of sporting competition and integrity. As others has said, if LIV had started a tour that pretty much met the OWGR ranking criteria, essentially similar formats to the long existing professional golf tournaments, but basically just offered a ton more money, then I reckon many many more of the top pros would have been tempted. Just like if the European Tour suddenly was injected with billions of pounds, but ran in the same way as it has always done, no doubt many pros would move back across the pond. Players may well be loyal to the PGAT when it is versus LIV in its current format, but they won't necessarily be loyal to the PGAT over everything else that may ever exist. I'm sure Rahm, McIlroy and Hovland would quickly become loyal to Europe again if they were to earn ten times more money.
GB72
Money List Winner
I still am not sure that the success of LIV was ever the plan. You put together something that is the antithesis of golf tradition and appoint someone with no tact and a well publicised antithesis towards the PGA Tour and throw around money and law suits like confetti and you are going get massive press, massive headlines and a degree of outrage. All it needed was the PGA to play their part by being anti everything and in no way conciliatory and they gladly obliged. This was never going to win but it will distract and make any other option seem great.
Meanwhile, whilst that is taking up all the media coverage, the real work is being done in the background to integrate Saudi money and influence into the PGA tour which it is doing nicely. So, rather than start a tour from scratch you take control of the biggest tour on the planet whilst everyone looks on and thinks that peace in the golf world and none of that brash LIV stuff is a good thing and that the deal on the table is the nest thing since sliced bread.
Meanwhile, whilst that is taking up all the media coverage, the real work is being done in the background to integrate Saudi money and influence into the PGA tour which it is doing nicely. So, rather than start a tour from scratch you take control of the biggest tour on the planet whilst everyone looks on and thinks that peace in the golf world and none of that brash LIV stuff is a good thing and that the deal on the table is the nest thing since sliced bread.
Mel Smooth
Hacker
Bratty
Princess Pouty (Queen of Fish Lips)
I really don't care much about LIV, the DP World Tour or the PGA Tour.
But this reason seems to sum it up for me.
D
Deleted member 1147
Guest
What? They want to protect the establishment and maintain the status quo?
Redtraveller
Club Champion
Glad your lad enjoyed it. I still think a bigger field over a longer period gives more opportunity to watch but do what you’re happy with as long as you enjoy it. I suppose as someone has suggested earlier the smaller crowds make it easierNot really buddy.
The ball from Sergio was the highlight of the day for the youth - he was at the back of the 14th green and had fist bumped pretty much every player as they walked off the green. When Sergio walked past he said "Sergio, Jugar Bien".. Sergio stopped, turned round and tossed him that ball. That's a memory for life for the kid right there.
I still don’t really understand who the majors are supposed to be missing out on next year?
The only decent golfers who don’t have exemptions you could argue would be Gooch, Reed and Niemann
1 major top 10 in the last 3 years between them, for Reed in an event he is exempt for life in. So 1 top 10 in 36 opportunities
The Masters this year had 18 Liv golfers. They offer exemption to next year for top 12 and ties in a small field!!! - yet none without longer exemptions got in
They have qualifying routes to both Opens and finish high in those gives entry to all others.
#playbetter
They’ve made their silk bed, they now need to lie in it.
The only decent golfers who don’t have exemptions you could argue would be Gooch, Reed and Niemann
1 major top 10 in the last 3 years between them, for Reed in an event he is exempt for life in. So 1 top 10 in 36 opportunities
The Masters this year had 18 Liv golfers. They offer exemption to next year for top 12 and ties in a small field!!! - yet none without longer exemptions got in
They have qualifying routes to both Opens and finish high in those gives entry to all others.
#playbetter
They’ve made their silk bed, they now need to lie in it.
