Patrick Reed has slammed the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR) as 'insignificant', after revealing his own spot in the world rankings has been 'hammered'. Since beginning in June, LIV Golf has been competing without world ranking points, resulting in many of its stars plummeting down the list of the world's best.
One of those stars has been Reed, whose position stood at 25th when heading into 2022. 10 months on the 2018 Masters champion sits 56th in the rankings after competing on the Saudi-backed series joining in June.
The Saudi-backed series had hoped to have ranking points at their event this week in Jeddah, as well as at their previous outing in Bangkok seven days prior after striking up a 'strategic alliance' with the OWGR-recognised MENA Tour.
Despite this MENA's application to the ranking system was for now turned down, after OWGR claimed the circuit's new application in conjunction with LIV gave them ' insufficient' to implement points with immediate effect. As a result Reed believes that the longer it takes the Saudi-funded circuit to acquire OWGR recognition, the more 'irrelevant' it will become.
“I’m getting hammered,” Reed said in regard to his ranking. “The only thing I’ll say about all of that is the longer that you have competitive golf and competition with such great players and top players, the longer they’re playing events that aren’t getting World Ranking points, it just makes the World Ranking system insignificant.”
“Let’s be honest; it’s not a true system if you’re not counting all the events and having points for everybody. If you’re competing for a golf tournament and they meet every criteria that you’re supposed to meet in order to have World Ranking points, then they should be getting World Ranking points no matter what.
"It doesn’t matter where you’re playing, who you’re playing, what Tour you’re on, anything like that.” Reed's comments were also echoed by his fellow LIV colleague McDowell.
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The Northern Irishman slammed the inaccuracy of the system, using the Saudi-backed series' newly crowned champion Dustin Johnson as a prime example for OWGR's apparent failings. McDowell said: "This guy standing in the middle of the three of us [Johnson], if his world ranking is inaccurate, then the whole system is inaccurate.
"I feel like LIV tried to do everything they possibly can to be legitimate in the eyes of the OWGR. The word 'Official' has to go away from OWGR if they don't take care of the players out here."
