MENA Tour Alliance: LIV Golf has formed a strategic partnership with the MENA Tour in the hopes that it will allow its competitions to receive world-ranking points.
The COVID-19 pandemic started in the Middle East and North Africa in 2011, but the MENA Tour alliance, a developing circuit that holds 54-hole competitions there, has only held one event since then. The wraparound programme, which will include at least 24 tournaments and have a minimum total purse of $75,000 (or $45,000 less than the last-place prize at the $25 million LIV events), was introduced last month.
The Formal World Golf Ranking board granted the MENA Tour official recognition in 2016, which was crucial to LIV because the OWGR is one of the primary entry points for players into the majors.
Earlier this summer, the competing tour submitted an application to the OWGR. 50 LIV players have signed a letter to Peter Dawson, the chairman of the OWGR committee, pleading for their inclusion, stating that excluding them would make the global ranking “incomplete and misleading.” LIV’s application has not received a status update from the OWGR, and the review might take up to a year.
According to a press statement from Atul Khosla, president and chief operating officer of LIV Golf, “We are taking this mutually advantageous move to assist the game at the developmental level and because of the importance and fairness of LIV players qualifying for OWGR points.” “We’re happy to build routes that give new players more opportunity while also providing fans with rankings that include all the top golfers in the globe,” the company stated.
Friday marks the start of the sixth tournament of LIV’s debut campaign, which will also serve as the opening event for the 2022–23 MENA Tour alliance. The press release states that the OWGR will get the final field for this week’s competition before the first round, at which point the circuits “expect” to receive points.
The newly declared partnership has not received any comments from OWGR, and the co-sponsored competition is not yet posted on the OWGR website. Requests for comment from an OWGR spokesperson were not immediately entertained.
Although expected, players that switched to LIV have witnessed a recent decline in their global rankings. 12 of the top 50 players in the world are represented by LIV, however notables Dustin Johnson (No. 23) and Cameron Smith (No. 3) may see big drops by the end of the year. On the basis of their most recent major triumphs, they are already exempt from the 2023 majors.
Many saw the 2021 “strategic agreement” between the PGA and DP World tours as an effort to sabotage the fledgling tour.
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