Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball.
Speaker 2: In a bride egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg,
Speaker 2: Frida Egg, frid Egg Egg, fride Egg, bride Egg Lie,
Speaker 2: I'm about ready to run off.
Speaker 1: Of the hump.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison, and
Speaker 2: today we are digging into the debates around the Official
Speaker 2: World Golf Ranking. The ow g R, which is the
Speaker 2: dominant global ranking system in men's professional golf, has somewhat
Speaker 2: surprisingly become a lightning rod for controversy this year. There
Speaker 2: are two main reasons for that. One, a few months ago,
Speaker 2: the OWGR introduced a new formula that critics say, we'll
Speaker 2: do may damage to any tour not named the PGA Tour.
Speaker 2: And two, the Upstart League Live Golf has not yet
Speaker 2: been approved by the OWGR and probably won't be anytime soon.
Speaker 2: LIV is desperate to change this because world ranking points
Speaker 2: are an important way that players qualify for the four majors,
Speaker 2: and Live's advocates have pointed out that the OWGR is
Speaker 2: governed by a board that includes PGA Tour Commissioner j
Speaker 2: Monahan and others invested in golf's status quo. So it's
Speaker 2: a big conspiracy, except not really. It's more complicated than that.
Speaker 2: And to sort it all out, I'm talking to Joseph Lamanna.
Speaker 2: Joseph is the co founder of Optimal Approach Golf, which
Speaker 2: advises elite golfers on data and strategy. He's also the
Speaker 2: writer of the Finding the Edge newsletter, where he's done
Speaker 2: some excellent stuff recently about the OWGR issue. Joseph, how
Speaker 2: you doing.
Speaker 1: I'm great, thanks for having me. Garrett really excited to
Speaker 1: talk about OWGR. I think I was pretty slow to
Speaker 1: formalize my thoughts on it. I wanted to give it
Speaker 1: some time and see how the formula was shaking out.
Speaker 1: But this is the perfect forum to have a more
Speaker 1: nuanced conversation around it. There's probably a lot of topics
Speaker 1: that we get worked up around that aren't worth the conversation.
Speaker 1: I think this one is an important topic and is
Speaker 1: worth a long conversation, so I'm really excited to do this. Cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this one actually does have an impact on the
Speaker 2: landscape of professional golf, and we've also been kind of
Speaker 2: slow to do a podcast about it. We've done a
Speaker 2: few newsletter pieces about it. But when this started to
Speaker 2: become controversial, when the OWGR started to become something that
Speaker 2: people were debating, I remember thinking to myself, I am
Speaker 2: so unprepared to have an opinion about this because I
Speaker 2: just don't know how it works. And I think that
Speaker 2: I might still not know really how it works, which
Speaker 2: is part of why I'm talking to you. I think
Speaker 2: you understand it a little bit better, but I'm starting
Speaker 2: to get there, and hopefully we can listeners there as well.
Speaker 2: I wanted to first talk about the new formula, right
Speaker 2: This is a big bone of contention right now. A
Speaker 2: lot of people are angry about it, some more performatively
Speaker 2: so than others. Shout out Lee Westwood. John Rahm has
Speaker 2: repeatedly called it laughable. Tiger Woods doesn't even seem sold
Speaker 2: on it. So maybe you could just describe to me
Speaker 2: what the perceived problem was with the old OWGR formula
Speaker 2: and then what the new one tries to do differently.
Speaker 1: Yep. I think that's the perfect starting point. So I
Speaker 1: think the best way to lay the framework for talking
Speaker 1: about the official World Golf Rankings, whether it's pre August
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty two, which is when the change went
Speaker 1: into effect or post August of twenty twenty two. It's
Speaker 1: important to always keep in mind that fundamental to calculating
Speaker 1: an official World Golf ranking is evaluating strengths of field.
Speaker 1: That is the fundamental piece of assessing a ranking. Right,
Speaker 1: there are golfers all around the world playing every weekend,
Speaker 1: not altogether, so you can't do an official World Golf
Speaker 1: rankings based on their scoring average. Right, somebody shoots sixty eight,
Speaker 1: that could be a much better score than somebody who
Speaker 1: shot seventy one across the world, but not necessarily conditions change.
Speaker 1: You have to have some way of standardizing performance, and
Speaker 1: what that relies upon is overlap and basically being able
Speaker 1: to link between tours. So you have some golfers playing
Speaker 1: European Tour events, you can compare their performance in European
Speaker 1: Tour events, DP World Tour events to their performance in
Speaker 1: PGA Tour events or to other tours around the world,
Speaker 1: and you can start to understand the relative strengths of field.
Speaker 1: The way the system used to work was that it
Speaker 1: determined the strengths of the field based on your official
Speaker 1: World Golf ranking. Specifically of top two hundred ranked players,
Speaker 1: and it gave out points to the field based on
Speaker 1: how many top two hundred Official World Golf ranked players
Speaker 1: there were in their rankings. The issue you can run
Speaker 1: into is if that system is biased, it becomes circular,
Speaker 1: where the issue with the ranking itself then perpetuates the
Speaker 1: issue of the official World Golf ranking because you are
Speaker 1: basing the strength of the field on the ranking. The
Speaker 1: change that happened in August of twenty twenty two was
Speaker 1: basically an attempt to abstract themselves from that issue. So
Speaker 1: now instead of deciding how strong a field is based
Speaker 1: on your official World Golf ranking, they're going to be
Speaker 1: they are deciding it based on their strokes gained, world
Speaker 1: rating a lot of words. Basically, what it means is
Speaker 1: a standardized way of assessing your performance over the last
Speaker 1: two years. I think proponents of the new system would
Speaker 1: say the biggest issue before was this circular issue basing
Speaker 1: strengths of field based on your official World Golf ranking
Speaker 1: itself and which.
Speaker 2: In turns which in turn determines your official World Golf ranking. Right,
Speaker 2: That's the circular piece of it. That was the problem.
Speaker 2: So then it could you know, eventually over time result
Speaker 2: in some inaccuracy. So the new system is a way
Speaker 2: to get away from that by using this strokes gained rating.
Speaker 2: And so then what is that and why is that different?
Speaker 1: Right? So your strokes gained rating is based on how
Speaker 1: you've played over the past two years, and they basically
Speaker 1: adjust your scores based on the it's called a fixed
Speaker 1: effects model. I don't know that people need to go
Speaker 1: two into the weeds of what that does, but it's
Speaker 1: basically saying, hey, if Garrett Morrison shot seventy one at
Speaker 1: the Players Championship in round one, how does that stack
Speaker 1: up with a seventy four in the BMWPGA Championship based
Speaker 1: on this overlapping of players. Once you've standardized that for ormance,
Speaker 1: you can understand where a player stacks up globally and
Speaker 1: use that to assess how strong a field is. And
Speaker 1: instead of just doing the top two hundred ranked players,
Speaker 1: it'll it'll do the entire field. It'll rank the entire field.
Speaker 1: So other point to call out is with this circular
Speaker 1: issue that I was mentioning before, if there's a bias
Speaker 1: within the system, it perpetuates itself. Well, if was true
Speaker 1: there was a bias within the system, and there was
Speaker 1: a mechanism for that, which was minimum points given to
Speaker 1: particular events, which we can get more into. But Mark
Speaker 1: Brody had written a large study in twenty twelve on
Speaker 1: how there was bias within the system, so this was
Speaker 1: not hypothetical that they were solving for some issue that
Speaker 1: didn't exist. There was bias within the system, namely against
Speaker 1: PGA Tour players. They were not being ranked as high
Speaker 1: as they should have based on a true, accurate methodology.
Speaker 2: Mark Brody, being the inventor of Strokes Gain, Yeah, that
Speaker 2: was wonderfully clear, Joseph. I actually learned quite a bit
Speaker 2: from that myself, because this Strokes Gained piece of it.
Speaker 2: I didn't properly understand before. One thing that I think
Speaker 2: I did hear about before, and that has been discussed
Speaker 2: a lot, is this issue of the previous bias of
Speaker 2: the OWGR formula, which Mark Brody pointed out in that
Speaker 2: well known paper where he basically showed that players on
Speaker 2: the European Tour were somewhat overrated by the OWGR European
Speaker 2: Tour and other tours in the world compared to the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour, where the competition was quite a bit stronger.
Speaker 2: Because of these minimums that the OWGR had, players who
Speaker 2: were playing on weaker tours could kind of get gradually
Speaker 2: better and better world rankings, better and better starts, better
Speaker 2: opportunities to get more OWGR points because they were kind
Speaker 2: of playing mainly on a tour that was being propped
Speaker 2: up somewhat by the old system.
Speaker 1: That is true. And to reiterate that point, Okay, if
Speaker 1: a player is ranked fifty second in the world when
Speaker 1: they actually should be ranked closer to eightieth, well, now
Speaker 1: they're going the fields that they're going to enter, they're
Speaker 1: being represented as the fifty second ranked player in the world.
Speaker 1: So and then that issue perpetuates itself. So that is
Speaker 1: the nature of the circular issue that I was describing,
Speaker 1: And I think anecdotally what would often happen is you'd
Speaker 1: have these international players ranked somewhere around sixty to fifty,
Speaker 1: you know, forty five, they'd get into a WGC and
Speaker 1: they'd finish at the bottom of the leader board. This
Speaker 1: wasn't people's eyes betraying them. This was actually happening. And
Speaker 1: it's sometimes an inconvenient truth to call out that actually
Speaker 1: the strengths of field between different tours is pretty different.
Speaker 1: So it's not just that, you know, we think the
Speaker 1: margins are so so thin and that sixty fifth player
Speaker 1: actually is the sixty fifth best player the world. The
Speaker 1: margins are a bit wider than that, and that's sort
Speaker 1: of an inconvenient truth that's necessary to the conversation and
Speaker 1: addressing some of the issues around the official World Golf rankings.
Speaker 2: The top ten players in the world aren't just a
Speaker 2: little bit better than you know, someone closer to one
Speaker 2: hundred in the world. There is a bigger gap there.
Speaker 2: Now players can move between those places in the world ranking,
Speaker 2: but the quality of play that gets you to the
Speaker 2: top ten in the world is quite different, and it's
Speaker 2: not just a it's not like a you know, a
Speaker 2: razor thin margin, and so these are meaningful differences now
Speaker 2: in that old system. I think that the WGCs really
Speaker 2: were the place that exposed this because the WGCs were
Speaker 2: no cut events right with small fields, and you'd see
Speaker 2: players get into the wgc's This is part of the
Speaker 2: idea of the WGC that players from these other tours
Speaker 2: other than the PGA Tour would get an opportunity like this.
Speaker 2: But they'd arrive at these events and often they would
Speaker 2: kind of get slaughtered, and so it seems like that's
Speaker 2: where this issue in the owgr really became legible in
Speaker 2: a specific way to golf fans and other people in
Speaker 2: the golf world.
Speaker 1: I guess I agree, and the part I would kind
Speaker 1: of dig my heels in and this could spark a
Speaker 1: little bit of tension. But some people would argue, well,
Speaker 1: it's not they're not finishing at the bottom of the
Speaker 1: leaderboards necessarily because they aren't as strong with players. There
Speaker 1: could be other factors at play, like the style and
Speaker 1: golf course being different. Right, So they do well on
Speaker 1: the Japanese Golf Tour, but then when they go to
Speaker 1: an American style course, their games don't translate as well.
Speaker 1: That's why they're finishing near the bottom of the leader board.
Speaker 1: I would vehemently disagree, and I would not attribute that
Speaker 1: to differences in the golf course. You could sell me
Speaker 1: on there being a little bit of a travel component,
Speaker 1: you know. I know Padre Harrington on Twitter put out
Speaker 1: a couple reasons that he suspects for some of this underperformance.
Speaker 1: I would dig my heels in and say, this is almost,
Speaker 1: you know, ninety plus percent explained by differences in skill quality,
Speaker 1: not differences in the golf course.
Speaker 2: All right, So the new formula tries to take away
Speaker 2: some of those biases that elevated players on other tours. Now,
Speaker 2: what do you think the downstream effects of this new
Speaker 2: formula will be? What are you know, whether it's immediate,
Speaker 2: next year or a few years down the line, how
Speaker 2: do you think that the landscape of professional golf is
Speaker 2: going to start to look different in both good and
Speaker 2: potentially bad ways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is where the conversation starts to get nuanced.
Speaker 1: So you know, I think a necessary part of this
Speaker 1: conversation becomes the question of what is the role of
Speaker 1: the official World Golf rankings? And so there are people
Speaker 1: who would maintain that all the official World Golf Rankings
Speaker 1: should be doing is providing an accurate assessment of where
Speaker 1: golfers stack up for the purpose of qualification into the
Speaker 1: majors or determining who the number one ranked golfer in
Speaker 1: the world is. So issues like, hey, well, now this
Speaker 1: might disincentivize top professionals from showing up in particular events.
Speaker 1: Somebody might make that argument, and then on the other
Speaker 1: side they'd say, but that's not the role of the
Speaker 1: official World Golf rankings to go and incentivize John Rahm
Speaker 1: to show up at a particular event. So I do
Speaker 1: think this is a question that we'll probably keep coming
Speaker 1: back to throughout the conversation. But to address directly your question,
Speaker 1: there is less of an incentive now for top players
Speaker 1: to show up in some weekly fielded, particularly international events.
Speaker 1: I do think this will weaken the non PGA tours
Speaker 1: a bit because it just doesn't provide as much of
Speaker 1: an incentive for you to go up and get as
Speaker 1: many points. A clear example of this is that if
Speaker 1: you win an event by one, or if you win
Speaker 1: an event by six, you're not getting a different number
Speaker 1: of official World Golf Rankings points. So for John Rahm
Speaker 1: to play really, really well in a strong fielded PGA
Speaker 1: Tour event, he might win by one and get all
Speaker 1: of those official World Golf Rankings points. But if he
Speaker 1: then goes and plays in the Australian Open, for example,
Speaker 1: and wins by six plays similarly, he doesn't get the
Speaker 1: same number of points that he would get on the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour. So if you think about like an expected
Speaker 1: points per start, his expectations would be better in these
Speaker 1: strong fielded PGA tour events, which, if you follow the
Speaker 1: train of thought here, can destabilize some of these tours
Speaker 1: that have sort of been reduced down to feeder tours
Speaker 1: to the PGA Tour. So that's the main I would
Speaker 1: say downstream effect is how it incentivizes play across the world.
Speaker 2: You can easily see how this new formula will certainly
Speaker 2: weaken tours across the world because one thing that these
Speaker 2: tours really rely on is big players occasionally showing up
Speaker 2: right and kind of making some of their bigger events
Speaker 2: a bigger deal. Now, PGA tour players who were born
Speaker 2: in Europe, like John Rahm, are certainly less incentivized to
Speaker 2: go support their national opens. John ram consistently goes back
Speaker 2: to Spain every year, plays in the Spanish Open, plays
Speaker 2: often in the Andalusian Masters, and makes those events a
Speaker 2: much higher profile deal than they would be if he
Speaker 2: didn't show up because he is a major, major star.
Speaker 2: I think that we want those players to do that.
Speaker 2: But the question is to go back to your point
Speaker 2: whether the OWGR should be in the business of promoting players.
Speaker 1: To do that. Yeah, and I will come back to
Speaker 1: that in a second. I want to address one thing
Speaker 1: you said on the I should John Rahm go and
Speaker 1: play in some of these events that he supported over
Speaker 1: the years. I know I'm kind of annoying about this,
Speaker 1: but just to stay on brand here, part of the
Speaker 1: issue is that the FedEx Cup incentivizes you to play
Speaker 1: as much PGA Tour golf as possible. Right, Yes, And
Speaker 1: so if you're already if John Ram has to deal
Speaker 1: with that, right that, if I want to win the
Speaker 1: FedEx Cup, I need to be playing in as many
Speaker 1: events as possible. And you're telling him we're already having
Speaker 1: an issue getting him to show up to the Spanish Open,
Speaker 1: or you could Australian Open. Now there's even less of
Speaker 1: an incentive to show up plus travel. Right, you can
Speaker 1: see how these changes would make it even more difficult
Speaker 1: to get some of these top players to show up
Speaker 1: in some of those events. But to more directly answer
Speaker 1: your question of do I think that's the role of
Speaker 1: the official World Golf rankings to promote golf globally in
Speaker 1: the health of all of these global tours, I don't
Speaker 1: know that I have this strongest opinion on it, but
Speaker 1: you could sell me that the answer is yes, Because
Speaker 1: if it's not them, who is it not saying that
Speaker 1: that's necessarily my opinion. I see both sides of this argument,
Speaker 1: but I do think it does drive the health of
Speaker 1: these tours, and if there's not another governing body that's
Speaker 1: overseeing this, there has to be a cohesiveness to the
Speaker 1: tours and what incentives it's providing top players. Because we're
Speaker 1: telling John Ram, hey, we want you to stay on
Speaker 1: the PGA Tour, we don't want you to join live,
Speaker 1: but you're also telling you're also not providing him a
Speaker 1: clean infrastructure to play in the events that he wants
Speaker 1: to play in and be rewarded appropriately. So personally, and
Speaker 1: I could be wrong, I don't want to put words
Speaker 1: in John Ram's mouth. I think part of the reason
Speaker 1: he has such an issue with the new official World
Speaker 1: Golf rankings is less of a methodology tension and more
Speaker 1: him not appreciating the golf landscape that's been laid out
Speaker 1: for him that has some flaws and the incentives it provides.
Speaker 1: That's my personal opinion, but that is sort of where
Speaker 1: I stand.
Speaker 2: And part of John Rahm's specific problem with all of
Speaker 2: this certainly must have to do with the new emerging
Speaker 2: PGA Tour requirements that top players play in a certain
Speaker 2: number of elevated PGA Tour events exactly, and so you know,
Speaker 2: his grievance is probably more broad than just what's going
Speaker 2: on with the OWGR, But the new OWGR formula and
Speaker 2: the effect that it has on secondary tours might have
Speaker 2: just been kind of a further twist of the knife.
Speaker 2: Now for John Rams specifically, and for European tour players
Speaker 2: European sorry born players as well. One of the issues
Speaker 2: is that they have to play in a certain number
Speaker 2: of dp World Tour only events in order to qualify
Speaker 2: for the Ryder Cup. So they have to do this anyway,
Speaker 2: and American players on the PGA Tour don't have the
Speaker 2: same requirement, and so really, you know, they're being kind
Speaker 2: of pushed in different ways. The new overall requirements of
Speaker 2: the PGA Tour, the OWGR formula, all of it seems
Speaker 2: to be affecting European born players in worse ways than
Speaker 2: American players, and arguably also affecting players who were born,
Speaker 2: say in Australia or South Africa or Japan or in
Speaker 2: another Asian country worse than it affects American born players.
Speaker 2: It's all kind of part of the same change in
Speaker 2: the world of golf in this live era. Now. Uh.
Speaker 2: One point that I have always been confused about with
Speaker 2: this is that the OWGR governing Board consists of the
Speaker 2: following people. There's the chairman of it, Peter Dawson, There's
Speaker 2: a representative from Augusta National. There's Keith Pelley, the CEO
Speaker 2: of the dp World Tour. There's Sethwah of the PGA
Speaker 2: of America. There's j Monahan of the PGA Tour, Martin
Speaker 2: Slumbers of the RNA, Mike Wan of the USGA, and
Speaker 2: a representative of the International Federation of PGA Tours. When
Speaker 2: coming up with this new formula, where in the world
Speaker 2: was Keith Pelly, Where was Martin Slumbers of the RNA.
Speaker 2: Where was the International Federation of the PGA Tours. Maybe
Speaker 2: I just don't understand the process very well, but I'm
Speaker 2: baffled as to why they Maybe they did raise an objection,
Speaker 2: but I'm a little confused as to how this new
Speaker 2: formula could get by this committee. I mean, JAYE. Monahan
Speaker 2: is on there, yes, and he benefits from this, but
Speaker 2: I'm not sure who else on the committee would have
Speaker 2: been like, yeah, this is this is a great idea.
Speaker 2: You know that they're supposed to be representing the interests
Speaker 2: of their tours and their organizations, and for a lot
Speaker 2: of them, this new formula doesn't seem to serve those interests.
Speaker 1: Well, I think you could spin it and you could say, well,
Speaker 1: we're removing bias from a system. We should all everyone
Speaker 1: at this table should agree that there shouldn't be bias
Speaker 1: baked into the system. Therefore, what is your objection? And
Speaker 1: that becomes a little bit of a difficult position to
Speaker 1: put somebody like Keith Pelly in to actually make him
Speaker 1: answer that question. But I think what you're bringing up
Speaker 1: is kind of a natural transition to one point that
Speaker 1: I had wanted to bring up, which I don't know
Speaker 1: how incendiary I want to be here. But if the
Speaker 1: official with golf rankings, the new methodology, if the point
Speaker 1: of it is purely to remove all bias and to
Speaker 1: just rank players how they should be ranked, why are
Speaker 1: there still minimum points given to the majors into the
Speaker 1: players Championship. I think that's an uncomfortable question for them
Speaker 1: to potentially have to defend.
Speaker 2: Hey, so Joseph wanted me to clarify something here. When
Speaker 2: he said minimum points, what he really meant was that
Speaker 2: the Majors and the Players now get fixed point allocations basically,
Speaker 2: which makes them unique. Because other events get points based
Speaker 2: on their strength of field. That's not the case with
Speaker 2: the Majors and the Players. That's all he was trying
Speaker 2: to say. There, all right, back to it.
Speaker 1: Why if we've tried to remove all of the bias
Speaker 1: from the system, why not just let the system exist
Speaker 1: on its own. Why do we have to give eighty
Speaker 1: first place points to the Players Championship and one hundred
Speaker 1: to the Majors. Why is that distinction being drawn? I
Speaker 1: think I know the answer, which is that they might
Speaker 1: even say, well, we don't want the Players Championship to
Speaker 1: get more points than the Masters, for example, because that.
Speaker 2: Could happen because the field is so much stronger and is.
Speaker 1: A bigger field. So we're actually doing this to prop
Speaker 1: up the majors, designate them explicitly as the pinnacle of golf,
Speaker 1: and make sure that, for example, the Players Championship doesn't
Speaker 1: exceed it. But my counter argument to that would be,
Speaker 1: and you are acknowledging that the Official World Golf Rankings
Speaker 1: is trying to do something beyond the scope of purely
Speaker 1: ranking the players so if you've already broken down that wall,
Speaker 1: then why can't we use it as a way to
Speaker 1: facilitate the growth of golf globally. That is the argument
Speaker 1: that I would start to bring up, and I think
Speaker 1: it's it gets into a lot of difficult conversations about
Speaker 1: what the purpose of the Official World Golf Rankings is.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense that I've done that? Absolutely, that
Speaker 2: makes sense. Well, basically you're using the logic, the new
Speaker 2: logic of the OWGR against itself by pointing out that, yes,
Speaker 2: it is actually doing something other than just purely ranking
Speaker 2: the players. Because clearly this policy of minimum points for
Speaker 2: the majors and the players is a way to pacify
Speaker 2: objections from Augusta National because the Masters would get hit
Speaker 2: pretty hard by the new formula. In relation to tournaments
Speaker 2: like the Players or the PGA Championship, which have tradition
Speaker 2: had big, very strong fields, the Masters, because of its
Speaker 2: various odd traditions, doesn't have a huge field and has
Speaker 2: a lot of players in that field who aren't the
Speaker 2: strongest players. And so clearly the od WJR Is making
Speaker 2: a compromise on that specific front, but doesn't seem to
Speaker 2: be giving the same consideration to some of the weaker
Speaker 2: tours around the world who might need some help as well.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's tricky, I mean, and we're not privy
Speaker 2: to all the conversations that this governing board had. I'm
Speaker 2: sure there were many considerations that they went through that
Speaker 2: we haven't gone through. But on its face, it just
Speaker 2: seems like the ODEBJR is making a statement we are
Speaker 2: just a world ranking system except when it comes to
Speaker 2: the except when it comes to the Masters, and we
Speaker 2: don't want to piss those guys off because they'll they'll
Speaker 2: have us murdered.
Speaker 1: And that's where I want to be somewhat cautious with
Speaker 1: what I say, because I'm not privy to any of
Speaker 1: those conversations, and there could be considerations beyond the ones
Speaker 1: that I've come cross and doing independent research. But that
Speaker 1: being said, and this is where I want to be
Speaker 1: careful about how incendiary I want to be. If you
Speaker 1: were live golf and you were trying to build the
Speaker 1: case that there's collusion against you or that there's some
Speaker 1: cooperation between the tours, the PGA Tour specifically, and like
Speaker 1: the official World Golf rankings, this is probably a point
Speaker 1: that I would explore pretty thoroughly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Why don't we make an example here
Speaker 2: to give people something to kind of hold on to
Speaker 2: going forward. So, you know, a few weeks ago, the
Speaker 2: DP World Tour Championship on the European Tour happened on
Speaker 2: the same week as the RSM Classic on the PGA Tour.
Speaker 2: The DP World Tour Championship had a fifty player field
Speaker 2: with seven of the top twenty five players in the OWGR.
Speaker 2: The RSM Classic had one hundred and fifty five player
Speaker 2: field with none of the top twenty five players. So
Speaker 2: the winner of the RSM Class got about thirty seven
Speaker 2: OWGR points, whereas the winner of the DP World Tour
Speaker 2: Championship got twenty two points or so. A lot of
Speaker 2: people said, this is unfair. Look at the DP World
Speaker 2: Tour Championship. That's a big event. It's the capstone event
Speaker 2: of the European Tour schedule. The RSM Classic is just
Speaker 2: a fall series, almost hitting Giggle Out on Sea Island.
Speaker 2: This is ridiculous, And on its face that might seem
Speaker 2: to be a legitimate point because just according to the
Speaker 2: eye test, the DP World Tour Championship is a bigger event.
Speaker 2: It's just that a win there is more meaningful than
Speaker 2: a win at the RSM Classic in terms of just
Speaker 2: like legacy and how good it looks on your resume.
Speaker 2: I think it's hard to argue otherwise, but the new
Speaker 2: OWGR system doesn't take those kinds of things into consideration.
Speaker 2: So why was the RSM Classic stronger and do you
Speaker 2: think it should have been or what should people understand
Speaker 2: better about why it was given more status on the OWTR.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the main thing to understand is that the
Speaker 1: Official World Golf Ranking methodology is really trying to give
Speaker 1: out points based pretty purely on how hard a championship
Speaker 1: is to win. And when there are one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty five players in an event, many of them you know,
Speaker 1: really strong PGA Tour players. They might not be the
Speaker 1: top ranked players in the world, but there you still
Speaker 1: get one hundred and fifty five really strong players together.
Speaker 1: It's extremely difficult to beat them over a four day period.
Speaker 1: And so the RSM Classic, even if it seems at
Speaker 1: its face easier to win than the DP World Tour Championship,
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily I had the RSM as slightly harder
Speaker 1: to win. I do think that you can make a
Speaker 1: pretty compelling argument that the thirty seven versus the twenty
Speaker 1: two was a little bit wide in terms of how
Speaker 1: those points were given to the winner. So potentially the
Speaker 1: official World Golf Rankings you maybe have could play around
Speaker 1: with their distributions a little bit and shouldn't have given
Speaker 1: the difference between a winning RSM versus winning the DP
Speaker 1: World Tour shouldn't have been as wide as it was.
Speaker 1: But on its face, you have to appreciate that when
Speaker 1: there's a large field, it's going to be rewarded more
Speaker 1: heavily in this new system of the ficial World Golf
Speaker 1: Rankings than the previous And I would say to John
Speaker 1: Rahm and to the others who played in the DP
Speaker 1: World Championship, the system kind of vindicated itself with the
Speaker 1: leader board. Jhon rom Won and the other top players
Speaker 1: in the world. I think five of the seven of
Speaker 1: them finished like in the top six.
Speaker 2: They romped, They beat the rest of the field pretty handily.
Speaker 1: And that's what I'm saying where that there actually are
Speaker 1: these pretty big differences in quality of play between the
Speaker 1: thirtieth best player in that field and the thirtieth best
Speaker 1: player in the RSM Classic. So I actually think the
Speaker 1: Official Golf Rankings didn't end up looking like a bad
Speaker 1: methodology here, contrary to some of the outrage around.
Speaker 2: It, if the OWGR were a completely independent organization, so
Speaker 2: if its governing board did not consist of representatives from
Speaker 2: the various tours that constitute the status quo in the
Speaker 2: golf world right now, if it were instead an utterly
Speaker 2: independent organization, what differences between the new formula and this invented,
Speaker 2: completely independent one do you think there would be?
Speaker 1: I think it would look almost identical to how it
Speaker 1: looks now. The main difference would be that you would
Speaker 1: not have those minimum points given to the majors and
Speaker 1: given to the players championship. Frankly, I think it's pretty
Speaker 1: hard to defend why those exist.
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Speaker 2: All right, let's get into the live stuff. The reason
Speaker 2: Live doesn't have OWGR points right now is that the
Speaker 2: OWGR has certain criteria for membership. Right First of all,
Speaker 2: there's a waiting period before a new tour's application gets approved.
Speaker 2: There are also requirements like the majority of a tour's
Speaker 2: events need to have seventy two holes thirty six hole
Speaker 2: cut field sizes of seventy five or above and so on.
Speaker 2: A tour needs to have an open qualifying process. That's
Speaker 2: another thing. All of these things are, you know, these
Speaker 2: are things that Live doesn't have right now. But before
Speaker 2: we get into like specific criteria, why does the OWGR
Speaker 2: need to have criteria for admission at all? What's the
Speaker 2: logic behind that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a great question, and I think with all
Speaker 1: of these type questions it is often useful to go
Speaker 1: to a logical extreme. So the extreme I would present
Speaker 1: you with is if you have a group of fifty
Speaker 1: golfers and they all sign a ten year contract guaranteed
Speaker 1: it's gonna be the same fifty golfers for each of
Speaker 1: the next ten years in these events, how would you
Speaker 1: evaluate the strength of that field in year one? Well,
Speaker 1: you kind of know, based on their current official golf
Speaker 1: ranking and how they've been playing on other tours where
Speaker 1: they should stack up, So doing it in year one
Speaker 1: probably not that big of an issue. But let's say
Speaker 1: this tour is isolated and those players are never going
Speaker 1: and playing any other events, how would you evaluate the
Speaker 1: strength of that field in year five? Because now they've
Speaker 1: just been playing against each other for five straight years
Speaker 1: and never participating in another event, there's no overlap between
Speaker 1: them and other tours of the players getting older and
Speaker 1: their performance is starting to drop off, how would we know?
Speaker 1: So the point I'm making is that overlap between tours
Speaker 1: is an integral part of assessing strengths of field, which
Speaker 1: is kind of why we started the discussion there. And
Speaker 1: so there needs to be some adherence to standards so
Speaker 1: that we can rank these players properly. Now, is all
Speaker 1: the criteria necessary? I think reasonable minds can argue that point,
Speaker 1: But I think it's hard to argue that there doesn't
Speaker 1: need to be adherence to any criteria at.
Speaker 2: All, because you just let chaos in and so you're
Speaker 2: essentially forced as a world ranking system to come up
Speaker 2: with criteria of some kind. Otherwise it would just be
Speaker 2: a free for all and it would be absurd. And
Speaker 2: so the folks who are saying why are these criteria
Speaker 2: there in the first place, Well, there seems to be
Speaker 2: a pretty solid reason why certain criteria need to exist.
Speaker 2: And these criteria need to define what a real golf
Speaker 2: event looks like. So which requirements along those lines FORWGR
Speaker 2: points do you think are actually important? You know, in
Speaker 2: defining a legitimate golf event.
Speaker 1: It's a good question. I mean, to be honest, I
Speaker 1: think the only the spirit of the only requirement that
Speaker 1: I may have would have to do with overlap. So
Speaker 1: we need a way for new players to get onto
Speaker 1: your tour and for your players to be participating in
Speaker 1: other tours. I think other parts like field size could
Speaker 1: be important. You don't have three person tour like that
Speaker 1: wouldn't make any sense. But could you rank players even
Speaker 1: if you didn't adhere to all this criteria? Yes, So
Speaker 1: for example, like having a cut, I don't think is necessary.
Speaker 1: I don't see why to rank players you need to
Speaker 1: have a cut personally, right, there's nothing preventing you from
Speaker 1: rating players performance in a no cut event.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the only criteria that I would say is necessary
Speaker 1: is has to do with the flow of players and
Speaker 1: having an interconnected system.
Speaker 2: Well, and if you had an eighteen hole tour event
Speaker 2: with a four player field, then it just wouldn't get
Speaker 2: many points, right, Maybe it could get o WGR points,
Speaker 2: but it would get so few that it would be
Speaker 2: totally insignificant. That's kind of an extreme example, but that's
Speaker 2: sort of what the new system allows to happen. Right,
Speaker 2: You can have a sliding scale of you know, different
Speaker 2: quality events, and if it's not a fairly big field
Speaker 2: seventy two hole event, then it's just not going to
Speaker 2: get significant world ranking points in a way that's going
Speaker 2: to upset the world order of golf.
Speaker 1: Right, And you're saying that's an extreme example, eighteen holes
Speaker 1: four players, But I actually think that's the way you
Speaker 1: should go about this thought exercise is taking it to
Speaker 1: extremes to understand why the criteria is in place. I
Speaker 1: think it's reasonable for them to insist that a tournament
Speaker 1: needs to be of a certain length. I don't think
Speaker 1: eighteen holes it's so noisy that I don't think eighteen
Speaker 1: holes gives you the best representation of how performance happened,
Speaker 1: especially if, like something there's a weird weather phenomenon that
Speaker 1: has a bigger impact on an eighteen hole sample than
Speaker 1: over seventy two holes. So I think having some length
Speaker 1: of a tournament requirement is reasonable. But some of the
Speaker 1: other requirement, like having a cut, I don't think needs
Speaker 1: to exist.
Speaker 2: And we can talk about cut in a second, but
Speaker 2: fifty four holes, is there anything about that that you
Speaker 2: think is illegitimate or that shouldn't be admissible for the
Speaker 2: OWGR criteria. So you know, just to be clear, fifty
Speaker 2: four hole events do exist on OWGR tours. Events get
Speaker 2: OWGR points that have fifty four holes, but in general
Speaker 2: a tour needs to have kind of an average of
Speaker 2: seventy two holes or a majority of its events being
Speaker 2: seventy two holes in order to be admitted to the
Speaker 2: OWGR and so Live currently because it holds only fifty
Speaker 2: four whole events does not meet that criterion. So do
Speaker 2: you think fifty four holes is too noisy in order
Speaker 2: to get ob JR points or is that enough?
Speaker 1: If it were so impermissible, then I don't think we'd
Speaker 1: count fifty four hole tournaments that were shortened due to
Speaker 1: weather as wins, right, And I think there are some
Speaker 1: instances where they haven't counted as official wins. But my
Speaker 1: point would be, I think you can rank players based
Speaker 1: on fifty four holes. If you said it had to
Speaker 1: be seventy two, well why is it seventy two? Why
Speaker 1: isn't it ninety or one hundred and eight? Like obviously,
Speaker 1: the more holes you have, the higher quality of a
Speaker 1: winner you should expect to rise to the top, But
Speaker 1: why seventy two versus ninety versus one hundred and eighth
Speaker 1: versus fifty four. I think you could do it with
Speaker 1: fifty four, even if it's a little bit noisier. You
Speaker 1: could just penalize that by giving fewer points. So I
Speaker 1: think it's possible. There are other things live is not
Speaker 1: adhering to that are bigger issues. But I think there's
Speaker 1: a world where you could give points to a tour
Speaker 1: that only has fifty four whole events.
Speaker 2: Okay, the cut issue, why do you think it is
Speaker 2: that a cut is required in the criteria. I find
Speaker 2: that to be an odd one.
Speaker 1: I'm honestly not sure, and I know that you pose
Speaker 1: this question before, like what benefit does a cut provide
Speaker 1: to a golf tournament? I think there are reasons why
Speaker 1: a cut is a cool feature of a tournament, but
Speaker 1: in terms of that being an obstacle to ranking players objectively,
Speaker 1: I don't think that a cut is necessary. So I
Speaker 1: can't speak exactly to what the rationale is behind requiring
Speaker 1: a cut. Maybe it's just that it's within the spirit
Speaker 1: of golf to have something like that, but I don't
Speaker 1: think it's necessary personally. I could be somebody could present
Speaker 1: account your argument that I'm open minded about accepting, so
Speaker 1: would be happy to hear from from the proponents of
Speaker 1: having a cut to rank players, But no, you can
Speaker 1: rank a player without having a cut.
Speaker 2: It does seem like a spirit of the game thing,
Speaker 2: which I kind of endorse. I think I've come to
Speaker 2: think that cuts are a pretty good part of a
Speaker 2: golf tournament. But like you, I don't really see why
Speaker 2: having a cut would facilitate ranking players. If the purpose
Speaker 2: of the OWGR is just to rank players and not
Speaker 2: to defend the spirit of the game, then I'm not
Speaker 2: sure why a cut is there now. The reason that
Speaker 2: I think cuts can be good is that they do
Speaker 2: introduce a little bit of intensity and demand. It just
Speaker 2: makes a tournament more of a challenge, and it makes
Speaker 2: it so that players who are not bringing it immediately
Speaker 2: just get ejected from the tournament, don't get any money,
Speaker 2: don't get any points. And there's like a kind of
Speaker 2: fairness to that because it facilitates getting those players who
Speaker 2: are just missing cut after cut after cut off the tour.
Speaker 2: Because if you aren't making cuts, then you shouldn't be
Speaker 2: on the tour. There should be other people on there
Speaker 2: who are making cuts, right and who are competing at
Speaker 2: a high level in every round. So I like the
Speaker 2: fact that cuts are there in a majority of big
Speaker 2: time events, But again, I don't really see why it's
Speaker 2: necessary for ranking players, and so the fact that the
Speaker 2: ODWGR has it as one of its criteria is a
Speaker 2: little bit confusing.
Speaker 1: I guess yeah, And look from an entertainment perspective, I
Speaker 1: think there's a huge benefit to having players sitting on
Speaker 1: the couch while their fellow PGA Tour players are hoisting
Speaker 1: a trophy on Sunday because they missed the cut. Like,
Speaker 1: you don't have to sell me on that being of
Speaker 1: benefit to the game of golf. But it goes back
Speaker 1: to the central question of what is the role of
Speaker 1: the Official World Golf Rankings Because they're not it's not
Speaker 1: explicitly mentioned that part of their mission is to facilitate
Speaker 1: the entertainment of golf worldwide, it's to rank players. So
Speaker 1: it just everything we're going to talk about is going
Speaker 1: to go back to that question. That's the role of
Speaker 1: the Official World Golf Rankings, and that's why it's such
Speaker 1: an important question to answer.
Speaker 2: Do you think if Live stays in its current form
Speaker 2: an invitational fifty four holes, no cut, fields of forty
Speaker 2: eight team golf. If it sticks with that, do you
Speaker 2: think it should ever get OWGR points.
Speaker 1: If it's an isolated entity. No. If there is this
Speaker 1: constant players are locked into contracts. Therefore they're getting a
Speaker 1: bunch of guaranteed starts, and it's hard for somebody to
Speaker 1: enter the system. There's no guarantees that those players are
Speaker 1: going to be playing a significant number of non live events,
Speaker 1: then no, I do not believe Live should get Official
Speaker 1: World Golf Ranking points. If it's a much more open
Speaker 1: qualification and you have those players playing a lot of
Speaker 1: other tournaments worldwide so that there's enough overlap you can
Speaker 1: consistently rank the strengths of field even if they don't
Speaker 1: have a cut, then yes, I would be fine on
Speaker 1: Live receiving Official World Golf Rankings points. There needs to
Speaker 1: be in sured encoded some level of interconnectedness between Live
Speaker 1: and other golf tours, and that kind of runs against
Speaker 1: the spirit of the entity that they're trying to create.
Speaker 1: So there are some philosophical differences between how Live views
Speaker 1: itself and how another tour that's a participant within the
Speaker 1: Official World Golf Rankings views itself, and that's what needs
Speaker 1: to change.
Speaker 2: So this interconnectedness between live and other tours, what are
Speaker 2: the main institutions through which that can be made to happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it has to be some form of open qualification,
Speaker 1: and I think you'd almost have to have. Ideally you'd
Speaker 1: have non live players playing in live tour events so
Speaker 1: you could get a feel for how people are stacking up,
Speaker 1: but that's not necessarily practical. But yes, the answer here
Speaker 1: is that it's some form of open qualification and ensuring
Speaker 1: that there's overlap between those players and the players on
Speaker 1: live and the players that are on every other tour
Speaker 1: in the world.
Speaker 2: Do you see that happening with live. I've tried to
Speaker 2: figure this out where I've been trying to think, like
Speaker 2: what would open qualifying look like for a live event.
Speaker 2: Would it be something ridiculous like there are four spots
Speaker 2: and you can qualify for those, or maybe that wouldn't
Speaker 2: be ridiculous. I don't know. How do you think they
Speaker 2: could actually facilitate this given their current structure.
Speaker 1: I think it's difficult because the PGA Tour is imposing
Speaker 1: a ban on players who participate in a live event.
Speaker 1: So even if you have open qualification, if a player
Speaker 1: is on an Asian Tour and they end up qualifying
Speaker 1: and playing. It's not like they'd be bringing a lot
Speaker 1: of points into that live event for live players to
Speaker 1: consume anyway. So it's hard to get to a point
Speaker 1: where live players, by entering the official World Golf Ranking
Speaker 1: ecosystem could start to kind of work their way back up.
Speaker 1: That's very unlikely. So if you're thinking about this from
Speaker 1: like the PGA Tours perspective, the savvy move is to
Speaker 1: just stall this thing as long as possible and then
Speaker 1: give them points because they won't be getting many points anyway,
Speaker 1: So I just thinking of game theory wise, or however
Speaker 1: you want to think about it, that's kind of the
Speaker 1: savvy strategy is just hey, we're reviewing the application and
Speaker 1: then you approve it like a year from now, and
Speaker 1: all their Official World Golf rankings will be down pretty
Speaker 1: far and they're locked into guaranteed contracts, so there aren't
Speaker 1: a lot of new points entering the system.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that was going to be my next question.
Speaker 2: If Live were to get points, how many points would
Speaker 2: it get and would Live still be a viable pathway
Speaker 2: to the majors, Because that's the big question about OWR points.
Speaker 2: I think that's what players care about. Can I earn
Speaker 2: enough OWGR points at this event or on this tour
Speaker 2: to continue to qualify for majors through the OWGR. Will Live, ever,
Speaker 2: especially under the new formula, be able to offer that pathway.
Speaker 1: It's not likely right now. But one of the ways
Speaker 1: you do that is you bring players. You sign players
Speaker 1: who have a strong stroke skiined world rating to your
Speaker 1: tour once you've become approved, which is part of why
Speaker 1: I thought, like, maybe they'll wait on cam Smith a
Speaker 1: little bit before bringing him over, like, go let him
Speaker 1: keep getting his keeping his official World Golf ranking up.
Speaker 1: I think the other thing this does is it really
Speaker 1: raises the stakes out of major championship. Now, if you're Live,
Speaker 1: you need your guys to go play well in the majors,
Speaker 1: not just from an optics perspective on how strong your
Speaker 1: tour is, but you need them bringing those that strokes
Speaker 1: gained world rating back into your fields. So I don't
Speaker 1: I don't really anticipate a world where Live gets accredited
Speaker 1: and has enough points in their system for players to
Speaker 1: gain entrance into the majors unless they bring When that happens,
Speaker 1: they bring like four really highly rated players over and
Speaker 1: then their own players have decent strokes, gained world ratings
Speaker 1: from majors, and the can kind of start to get
Speaker 1: points that way. But it's going to be an uphill battle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what do you think the endgame here is for Live?
Speaker 2: If you were making decisions about the future of Live
Speaker 2: as a viable world golf tour where players could play
Speaker 2: on Live full time and also participate in the majors.
Speaker 2: What is the goal, right, Is it to get the
Speaker 2: forty eight best players in the world on the tour
Speaker 2: so that even if they are small field events and
Speaker 2: are getting docked by THEWGR formula, that the fields are
Speaker 2: so strong that players will still get enough points to
Speaker 2: qualify for the majors. Or is the goal to negotiate
Speaker 2: with the majors and establish a non OWGR pathway from
Speaker 2: Live to the Masters, to the PGA Championship to the
Speaker 2: US Open. Do you think that's a more likely outcome
Speaker 2: or strategy for Live to get its players into the majors.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're asking me to put my self in
Speaker 1: the shoes of people that live in those boardrooms, and
Speaker 1: I'm comfortable doing that. Like that is sort of the
Speaker 1: question here. I think and I feel pretty high conviction
Speaker 1: about this without having any knowledge of I've never been
Speaker 1: in contact with Live once. I believe that they are
Speaker 1: saying to themselves, we're going to shift the balance of
Speaker 1: power to where we have the players, or they need
Speaker 1: to negotiate with us, because I don't think they've gone
Speaker 1: too far down the scenarios of how are we an
Speaker 1: integrated body with other tours and what happens if our
Speaker 1: players are playing in their events. I think they're just
Speaker 1: thinking about this as once we have enough top players,
Speaker 1: they have to accommodate us because we are the biggest
Speaker 1: show in town and all of golf can go ahead
Speaker 1: and die. That's fine. People are still going to be
Speaker 1: watching our events. So personally, I think that's what the
Speaker 1: strategy is. I don't think there's any math happening in
Speaker 1: those boardrooms around the new methodology and how what it
Speaker 1: means for when Cam Smith goes up and plays shows
Speaker 1: up and plays the RBC Heritage, if he's ever allowed again.
Speaker 1: I don't think they're worrying about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, they just want to be the center of
Speaker 2: power in the golf world so that if there's a
Speaker 2: new owgr it forms it self around Live instead of
Speaker 2: forming itself around the PGA Tour, which seems to be
Speaker 2: kind of the shape of it right now.
Speaker 1: I think they're trying to say to the official Golf
Speaker 1: rankings like it's it's us or it's obsolescence, right like
Speaker 1: that is I think the ultimately what the card that
Speaker 1: they're trying to play, which makes sense. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: that's a reasonable route to go. But you have to
Speaker 1: be pretty dismissive of a lot of their comments around
Speaker 1: them wanting to be growing the game and a cooperative
Speaker 1: actor if you believe what I believe about what their
Speaker 1: intentions are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now that raises my last question. You mentioned obsolescence
Speaker 2: for the OWGR, which is which seems to be kind
Speaker 2: of a possibility if you believe in the potential of
Speaker 2: Live to kind of spend its way to the very
Speaker 2: top of the golf world. The OWGR could get really
Speaker 2: marginalized if it doesn't work with Live in that situation.
Speaker 2: But I want to go like a different another counterfactual,
Speaker 2: very speculative. What would happen. What would the world of
Speaker 2: golf look like if we just did away with the
Speaker 2: OWGR tomorrow, if we dissolved it and didn't have World
Speaker 2: ranking points anymore, Would things be worse? Would things be better?
Speaker 1: Well? Yeah, and I think the Official World Golf Rankings
Speaker 1: is pretty safe for now and as long as you
Speaker 1: live doesn't sign too many more top players, right, that's
Speaker 1: the domino that kind of shatters every other domino if
Speaker 1: if that were to happen. I have thought about, like, well,
Speaker 1: what is an alternative to the official World Golf Rankings,
Speaker 1: which is sort of the question you're asking kind of
Speaker 1: like what would it look like? What would the world
Speaker 1: without Official World Golf Rankings look like. I think there's
Speaker 1: a world where you reframe what entrance into the majors
Speaker 1: looks like, and you start to give points based off
Speaker 1: of the tour and maybe instead of staying points like
Speaker 1: spots like hey, Japan tour, historical analysis shows that you
Speaker 1: have one player per year that's of quality to play
Speaker 1: in the Masters. We want to facilitate the growth of
Speaker 1: golf worldwide, so we're going to give you three spots,
Speaker 1: and so you can start to think about entrance into
Speaker 1: the majors based on like how many spots are being
Speaker 1: designated throughout the world, and that kind of props up
Speaker 1: the tours. I think that's possible. I'm not advocating for it,
Speaker 1: but if you're asking me to do the thought exercise
Speaker 1: and what the world could look like without official wood
Speaker 1: golf rankings, that's kind of where my head goes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I just think of the majors kind
Speaker 2: of revising their criteria not to include OWGR points.
Speaker 1: But then what purpose is the ficial wood golf rankings
Speaker 1: even serving?
Speaker 2: That's yeah, none, right, I guess that's sort of the point.
Speaker 2: Is that right now the relevance of the OWGR beyond
Speaker 2: just kind of like symbolic. I'm ranked this in the OWGR.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's tied to certain incentives with my sponsors getting
Speaker 2: a particular ranking. Being number one is a really meaningful
Speaker 2: thing that players seem to be bought into. But all
Speaker 2: of that is symbolic stuff, right The main thing right
Speaker 2: now is the interface between the tours, the OWGR, and
Speaker 2: the majors. That's what it is really doing right now,
Speaker 2: and so if you cut that off, then you know,
Speaker 2: why do we have this system in the first place,
Speaker 2: and is it doing any good for the golf world?
Speaker 2: I guess that's the real question I want to ask.
Speaker 2: Do you think the OWGR is good for the golf world.
Speaker 1: I think it serves an important purpose in the golf world. Yes, do.
Speaker 1: I think that those point minimums may have ended up
Speaker 1: serving some benefit on net to the golf world too,
Speaker 1: like maybe to the flagship events so that you get
Speaker 1: some more players into the majors. But that's not really
Speaker 1: the purpose of the Official Golf Rankings. So it's a
Speaker 1: nuanced conversation. I think it's difficult to figure out exactly
Speaker 1: what the optimal system is. But to your point of like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe the Masters then is just going to let create
Speaker 1: some other avenue for live players to get in. Live
Speaker 1: is at to get the Masters, Like I fully believe it,
Speaker 1: Live is trying to disrupt golf in such meaningful ways
Speaker 1: that I'm not sure it's in the Master's best interest
Speaker 1: to cooperate. So that the question, but the Masters was involved.
Speaker 1: They're on the board of the Official World Golf Rankings Committee.
Speaker 1: They none of these changes, these downstream effects of the
Speaker 1: Official with Golf Rankings should be of any surprise to them.
Speaker 1: So personally, I think it's beneficial for all of those
Speaker 1: people in that room to be aligned. And yeah, whether
Speaker 1: or not the Fficial World Golf Rankings is of benefit
Speaker 1: to the world. I think depends on your perspective. I
Speaker 1: would say yes, it is mostly a benefit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and I'm just poking at it because
Speaker 2: I'm trying to figure out what are the ways in
Speaker 2: which the OWGR has kind of enmeshed itself in the
Speaker 2: professional golf world. And what I'm finding here is that
Speaker 2: it's like deeply, deeply enmeshed. It's got its tentacles way
Speaker 2: in there. You know, you mentioned the Masters. Why would
Speaker 2: the Masters open up a pathway to live given that
Speaker 2: Augusta National sits on the OWGR board, And that's a
Speaker 2: great point because the OWGR has enmeshed itself with the
Speaker 2: majors in this way, and so it's like this really
Speaker 2: established institution in golf. But the thing is, it didn't
Speaker 2: exist until the eighties, right, It hasn't been around forever.
Speaker 2: And I don't think that the majors had OWGR criteria
Speaker 2: available until even more recently than that. I think it
Speaker 2: happened sometime around the late nineties and early two thousands
Speaker 2: when the majors began to include OWGR qualification as an option,
Speaker 2: and so all of this is pretty recent. But at
Speaker 2: the same time, to disentangle the OWGR from the golf
Speaker 2: world would be really, really difficult at this point, and
Speaker 2: that is kind of what LIVE is trying to do.
Speaker 2: And the only way that it seems like LIV can
Speaker 2: do that is just the brute force of we're going
Speaker 2: to recruit all the best players in the world and
Speaker 2: we're going to start staging our own majors, and the
Speaker 2: rest of the tours, along with the OWGR, which is
Speaker 2: so connected with those tours, would be marginalized. That seems
Speaker 2: to be liv's play here.
Speaker 1: And I guess I'd like to revise my answer to
Speaker 1: what benefit is the Official World Golf Rankings? And I
Speaker 1: don't know how profound this is, but I think the
Speaker 1: benefit of the Official World Golf Rankings is it's providing context,
Speaker 1: and that is across the world, what does this event mean?
Speaker 1: How good are the guys who are playing here? That's
Speaker 1: the question that it's answering. And so when you have
Speaker 1: a major and you say why is this player here, Well,
Speaker 1: that's because he was ranked forty eighth at the end
Speaker 1: of the year. That's why he's here. The Official World
Speaker 1: Golf Rankings are providing context, and I think what you're
Speaker 1: hitting on and why this conversation is difficult and nuanced
Speaker 1: is that by having players on live that aren't ranked,
Speaker 1: we are starting to lose context, and ultimately, context is
Speaker 1: probably the answer to what the official of golf rankings
Speaker 1: is providing.
Speaker 2: All right, Joseph, this was really interesting. Your company is
Speaker 2: called Optimal Approach Golf. Your newsletter is called Finding the Edge.
Speaker 2: I'd highly recommend Finding the Edge. I read every edition
Speaker 2: when it comes out. Thanks for coming on the podcast
Speaker 2: and talk to you again soon.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for having me us respond.
Speaker 2: This episode of the Frida Egg podcast was edited by
Speaker 2: Meg Atkins. So the big thing going on at the
Speaker 2: Frida Egg right now is that we're launching a membership.
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Speaker 2: and we hope you join us. All right, thanks for listening,
Speaker 2: and we'll see you again soon.