Rory McIlroy is an important voice in the professional golf landscape, but he surprisingly doesn’t move the needle for Lee Westwood.
Westwood fires back at Rory
The 52-year-old LIV Golf member continued The morning show on talkSport on Thursday to discuss LIV Golf moves to 72 holes and respond to McIlroy’s comments on the league’s decision, noting that the five-time major champion has suffered quite a slide over the past few years since LIV’s arrival.
“I don’t know. I don’t pay much attention to what Rory says, really,” Westwood said. “He’ll change his mind next week.”
Rory’s thoughts on LIV’s move
On Wednesday, McIlroy discussed LIV Golf’s stunning decision to move all events from 54 holes to 72 holes in an effort to remove a barrier to entry into the Official World Golf Ranking. Five times major champion left with more questions than answers about how the move would increase the breakaway league’s standing in the ecosystem.
“I think it’s a special move because I think they could have gotten ranking points with three rounds,” McIlroy said ahead of the 2025 HSBC Abu Dhabi Championship. “I don’t think three rounds versus four rounds was what held them back. It certainly puts them more in line with traditional golf tournaments than what we’ve all done. It brings them back to not really being disruptive and kind of falling more in line with what they do.” everyone else.”
The move to 72 holes, combined with LIV’s decision to open up more league lanes, could lead to the league entering the OWGR, which will provide its players with the points needed to qualify for major championships. But McIlroy isn’t sure how much the OWGR points will help the LIV players now, given how far they’ve already fallen in the rankings.
“I think what’s difficult is you have the LIV guys and you say they can win the world rankings, but because their field strength is going to be so weak because a lot of the guys have already fallen down the rankings because they haven’t had a ranking point for so long,” McIlroy said. “I don’t know if the ranking points will really benefit them. Yeah, it will be interesting to see how it plays out.”
While McIlroy is right that most LIV players have fallen in the OWGR — only three players are currently in the top 50 — a change to the OWGR algorithm could help the Saudi-backed league. In 2022, OWGR created a metric called “Strokes Gained World Rating,” which affects not only where you finish on the leaderboard, but also how well you shoot in relation to the course you play. So, for example, while Jon Rahm is currently the 71st golfer in OWGR, he is fifth in World Strokes Gain. This change could help limited LIV Golf courses earn more OWGR points than they would have if field strength was based solely on player rankings.
Our own Sean Zak has a detailed explainer of the metric from when OWGR introduced it here.
LIV’s motivation for the rules varies
LIV Golf’s decision to change was welcomed by many of its top players, including Bryson DeChambeau.
While joining the OWGR was one reason for the move, Westwood noted that it wasn’t the only one and may not have even been the main justification for the change.
“I think (the OWGR points) is one of the angles behind it. I think there were a few different things,” Westwood said. “Some of the guys centered their whole season around the majors. And playing 54 holes was putting them at a disadvantage. I think they wanted to play 72 holes – which was more representative of the main championship format. But world ranking is one of the things on LIV’s mind. I don’t know if they’re in other world criteria or not 5. before, but I think the boxes you have to tick with world ranking, 72 holes probably helps that.
Tyrrell Hatton, who is one of three LIV players inside OWGR’s top 50, said Wednesday that most LIV players had previously voted against moving tours from 54 to 72 holes. But that changed this year.
“I think it’s a good thing that LIV has gone to four rounds,” Hatton said in Abu Dhabi. “I know at the end of my first season, there was a questionnaire that was filled out. One of the questions was about the 72-hole move. I think of everyone who filled it out, I think there were only three guys, initially, who had said (yes) to moving there (to the 72 hole). I think it’s changed a lot of attitude in the last year, from my happy moment to this move, and of course. the hole.”
Time will tell if the move has the desired effect for Hatton, Westwood and the breakaway league.
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