Authenticity is everything in golf. Tradition and appearances are so treasured that almost nothing is taken seriously without it.
My favourite golfing oxymoron – there is more than one – comes from a desperate reach for authenticity. It came when the PGA Tour built their lavish clubhouse at their TPC Sawgrass HQ in 2007.
The building is one of those architectural hotch-potches that tries to be everything and ends up being pastiche. The official description was “Mediterranean Revival”. The actual result is probably best described as “Florida Gothic”.
Anyway an over-excited PGA vice-president described the new building as giving Sawgrass “instant tradition”. It’s right up there with “virtually spotless” and “military intelligence”.
Just a publicity stunt
Official World Golf Ranking Statement
Follow the link below to our website for more Information: https://t.co/3mQtB9cbyN#OWGR #OfficialWorldGolfRanking pic.twitter.com/ARqbnVXpxi
— OWGR (@OWGRltd) October 6, 2022
Last week’s attempt by LIV Golf to claim world rankings through the back door of an ad-hoc affiliation with the MENA Tour was an over-desperate reach for authenticity of the same kind.
To be clear: the majority of the players who have joined LIV Golf and seen their world rankings tank exponentially, don’t really care anymore.
Although understanding the OWGR requires algorithmic expertise that makes sports journalists immediately seek a place to lie down, golfers are acutely aware of where they stand.
The Dustin Johnsons, Brooks Koepkas and Cam Smiths are in the majors they want to be for life anyway. They don’t really care about rankings.
The Lee Westwoods, Ian Poulters and Paul Caseys have been around the block a bit. They’re sad they might be locked out of the Open now. But they’re probably at peace with it as they count their upfront money from the Saudi Investment Fund.
They signed knowing – or at least suspecting – that the majors and Ryder Cups and other nice stuff were probably not going to be available anymore. If Bryson DeChambeau signed not knowing this, then he’s not remotely the genius he purports to be.
So why are LIV so strident in demanding OWGR recognition – particularly when it appears the OWGR board are not of a mind to give it to them?
Why did LIV try the MENA Tour back-route when they surely were already signed up with the Asian Tour, where trying to force OWGR recognition would have made more sense?
Because, like so much involved with LIV Golf, this was simply a publicity stunt.
Long-term LIV needs the rankings
MENA – where Robert MacIntyre won his first professional event – has been in abeyance since Covid. They would have been earning miniscule OWGR points even if the rankings board hadn’t shut down the process immediately.
LIke Greg Norman’s various ‘demands” of late, including the one where he demanded a right to play in the 105th Open, it’s all about attention.
LIV is finding what the established tours did about playing in September and October – once football (NFL and soccer) starts, the biggest sports markets care about nothing else, and it’s impossible to get noticed.
Compare how much attention is actually being paid to LIV’s actual tournaments. Is it the players, the results, the ‘innovative’ team format, or when they pull stunts like this? It’s not even close.
But rankings are vital to LIV long term. Maybe the stars they’ve paid ludicrous sums so far don’t care. But if the league is to have legs, and if it is to force a peace settlement with established golf (to me, the only feasible direction for this whole thing to go) they have to have rankings.
To keep convincing other players to join them. And more importantly, to give them that crucial authenticity.
Without the rankings, LIV Golf will always just be an exhibition.
Next man up
There is nobody that we work with that got dealt a harder blow regards playing opportunities, & what felt like constant door slamming in the face, than @euanwalkergolf thanks to Covid
Today is just reward for the belief & hard work
Brilliant Euan, we're so delighted for you 🏆 pic.twitter.com/80AxZ4azne
— Bounce (@bouncespmgt) October 9, 2022
Scotland’s new young breed on the DP World Tour has been a welcome development for us in the last three or so years. But we’re Scots, and the negative is never far away.
Yeah, we’re enjoying the rise of Robert MacIntyre, Ewen Ferguson, David Law, Grant Forrest, Calum Hill and Connor Syme – why wouldn’t you? But yeah, you know there’s a fallow spell coming now, right?
In that light, Euan Walker’s victory on the Challenge Tour in Cornwall at the weekend was an additional shot in the arm, and not as unexpected as it might seem.
Euan might be the Scots pro who has been most affected by the slowdown for the pandemic.
He was beaten finalist in the last pre-Covid Amateur and that was more than promising.
Particularly as players who lose the Amateur final, strangely, often turn out to be more successful as pros.
The mental fortitude
Step up @euanwalkergolf 🤯
165 yards over water to win the British Challenge presented by Modest! Golf Management 🔥#BritishChallenge pic.twitter.com/DSjxMC8SEW
— Challenge Tour (@Challenge_Tour) October 9, 2022
Euan turned pro just as Covid started, and he somewhat fell between the cracks a little as a result.
His management Bounce made reference to this after his victory, saying no-one on their books has had a more difficult transition.
But he always had the talent. The way he closed out the win at St Mellion – a ballsy shot over water to four feet for the birdie he needed – more than illustrated he has the mental fortitude as well.
Euan’s also something of a late developer – he’s older than MacIntyre and Ferguson. It’s another example that you have to let players develop at their own pace.
Maybe there’s not many on the amateur circuit who look like “can’t missers” the way Bob, Ewen and Connor did. But we’ve labelled so many players like that who DID miss that we should be warned off it for good.
There’s every chance any player can make it. Nobody deserves to be written off.