The OWGR say they have received insufficient notice of the new Mena Tour and LIV collaboration to allow upcoming events in Bangkok and Jeddah to qualify for world ranking points.
In the rollercoaster ride of professional golf since the LIV tour burst onto the scene in June this year at the Centurion Club, this is a new twist in the tale, after earlier developments this week looked to have found a loophole, which allowed their players to gain the crucial ranking points to enable them to participate in the four majors.
At statement from the OWGR explained “Notice of these changes given by the Mena Tour is insufficient to allow OWGR to conduct the customary necessary review ahead of the LIV Golf Invitational Bangkok and LIV Golf Invitational Jeddah. Only after the review is complete will a decision be made on awarding points to the Mena Tour’s new “Limited Field Tournaments”, defined as ‘any Mena Tour-approved tournament, which comprises of a player field of less than 80 players’.
The alliance between Mena and LIV was clearly a strategic way to qualify their players for OWGR points, as the Mena tour hasn’t staged a single event since the start of the Covid Pandemic in 2020.
How this will affect the 2023 season will be decided by the OWGR board once a full review of the proposal has taken place, but with the OWGR board compromising of members including include PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, DP World Tour CEO Keith Pelley, USGA CEO Mike Whan, R&A chief executive Martin Slumbers, PGA of America executive director Seth Waugh, Augusta National Golf Club executive director Will Jones and Keith Waters, who represents the International Federation of PGA Tours, it’s certainly not going to be a given that the request is honoured.
