PGA Tour and LIV Golf stars are gathering on opposite sides of the world this week, with a collective $45 million in prize money on the line. But the cash up for grabs isn’t what players are talking about. LIV’s abandonment of its effort to secure Official World Golf Ranking points has sparked some passionate reactions among the sport’s top players.

Ahead of LIV’s tournament in Hong Kong, No. 3–ranked Jon Rahm (above) reiterated his years-long beef with the OWGR system. “If anything, the more time that goes on, the more it proves to be wrong,” he said. While Rahm hasn’t been negatively impacted by the current rankings yet (he said he didn’t even know LIV was still trying to get OWGR points), LIV’s Joaquin Niemann needed special invites from the Masters and PGA Championship, and other league staples like Talor Gooch are out of the majors altogether.

“I don’t think the world rankings are a true representation of the golf game at the minute,” No. 9–ranked Matthew Fitzpatrick said in Orlando ahead of the Arnold Palmer Invitational. “I don’t really look at them or pay attention to them anymore. I just don’t think they’re right.” Fitzpatrick said he prefers to look at Data Golf, a growing internet database that incorporates non-OWGR sanctioned tournaments like LIV’s. For example, Data Golf ranks Niemann at No. 12 in the world, 64 spots higher than his current OWGR ranking (No. 76).

“It’s inevitable that things need to be updated,” said Patrick Cantlay, No. 6 in the world. “The LIV Tour definitely has really good players,” added Xander Schauffele, No. 5. “I do believe they’re definitely top-ranked players in the world.”

Reading Between the Lines

LIV falls short of many of the OWGR’s sanctioning requirements, thanks mostly to its 54-hole tournaments, limited field sizes, and lack of substantial qualifying methods. However, the growing sentiment isn’t necessarily that LIV deserves OWGR points but rather that the system in place is not painting the entire picture of golf’s best players.

The OWGR’s governing board includes representatives from the four majors, as well as the PGA Tour, European Tour Group, and International Federation of PGA Tours. They could change their mind on how to allocate points whenever they please. For now, the big speed bump looks to be the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia’s impending deal with the PGA Tour, which could be worth $3 billion. Getting that completed would most certainly be a win for the PIF-backed LIV.

There is potentially a new wrinkle to the ongoing debate between the NFL and NFL Players Association regarding the safety of the league’s playing fields—thanks to a pilot program of a new piece of technology. 

Amid months of rising tension between the NFL and the union over the widespread use of artificial turf—the relative inconsistency of that turf and the removal of several such fields for natural grass in the 2026 World Cup to meet FIFA requirements—the ’23 NFL season featured the use of the BEAST, according to ESPN, a mobile machine testing field conditions in extensive detail. 

Short for Biomechanical Elite Athlete Shoe-Turf Tester, the BEAST is more than 15 years in the making and is capable of evaluating the specific rotation and post-impact traction of various samples of artificial turf fields. Those scientific properties, in turn, are seen as key factors in whether a player could sustain an injury due to the field conditions. 

Great Debate: Grass vs. Synthetic

The NFL has consistently argued that there is a negligible difference in the overall injury rates between natural grass and synthetic fields. But many players have argued they still feel worse overall and certainly more susceptible to injury on turf fields. The testing with the BEAST is designed in part to help bridge that divide with additional sets of objective metrics.

“We want to provide surfaces that perform best for our players,” NFL field director Nick Pappas told ESPN. “We want them to be able to go out and play and execute and be able to just focus on football.”

Data from this past season is now being aggregated and analyzed for further evaluation, and it will fuel future discussion between the NFL and NFLPA. More BEAST units are also in development, and the pilot program is set to be expanded in 2024. 

The field debate, however, will continue to run up against the stark reality that for many NFL teams, it’s still operationally easier and frequently more lucrative to hold nongame events when they have turf fields. Falcons president Greg Beadles told Front Office Sports last month it wasn’t possible to have grass at Mercedes-Benz Stadium due to the facility’s 50-plus major events staged there annually as well as the downtown Atlanta setting.

“It’s a very tight campus. So we don’t have space to roll [out] a whole field,” Beadles said. “It’s not just our decision where we are located. … It’s just not tenable to have grass.”