Dustin Johnson is confident the LIV Golf Series will be given world ranking points, claiming that recognition from the Official World Golf Rankings is 'inevitable'. One of the major dints in LIV Golf's armour has been a lack of world ranking points, as their players continue to tumble down the rankings.
The breakaway circuit seemed to have found a loop hole last week, after forming a strategic alliance with the OWGR-recognised MENA Tour, co-sanctioning their previous event in Bangkok and this week's in Jeddah to ensure points were on offer. OWGR refused to the request though, stating MENA's new application gave the ranking system 'insufficient' notice to review its new LIV-included format.
The refusal was yet another setback from Greg Norman's Saudi-backed series, however their newly crowned individual champion Johnson believes it is only a matter of time before ranking points are on offer.
Speaking ahead of this week's tournament in Saudi Arabia, he said: "Hopefully they [OWGR] do the right thing and we'll know something in the next week or so. Hopefully they give us points, this will all be over and we won't have to talk about it anymore."
The 2020 Masters champion went on to add that he believes the longer LIV players are excluded from the world rankings, the more 'irrelevant' the system will become. He went on: "The longer it takes obviously the more irrelevant it becomes for us.
"If you wait too long all our rankings are going to drop so much it's not even going to really matter." These thoughts were echoed by Johnson's LIV colleague and former US Open champion Graeme McDowell. Like the American McDowell also felt that the legitimacy of the rankings should be questioned without the inclusion of LIV players, using Johnson as a prime example.
"This guy standing in the middle of the three of us [Johnson], if his world ranking is inaccurate, then the whole system is inaccurate," said the Northern Irishman. "I feel like LIV tried to do everything they possibly can to be legitimate in the eyes of the OWGR.
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"The word 'Official' has to go away from OWGR if they don't take care of the players out here.All we want is to have a fair court, to recognise exactly what it is that we are doing. It's impossible to ignore the talent that's out here.
"The only assurances that we get from LIV is that we are ticking all the boxes that we can tick and continue to do what is necessary for the OWGR to look at us the right way."
