LIV Golf's Talor Gooch Says a Potential Rory McIlroy Grand Slam Should Have an Asterisk
As LIV Golf prepares this week for its third tournament of 2024, the Official World Golf Ranking issue is again at the forefront, with Talor Gooch the latest to criticize the system that helps with major championship qualification.
Gooch, who won three LIV Golf events in 2023 and was the league’s player of the year, is not yet in any of this year's major championships. He played in three last year, missing the cut in two, but has dropped to 449th in the OWGR.
“If Rory (McIlroy) goes and completes his (career) Grand Slam without some of the best players in the world, there’s just going to be an asterisk,” Gooch said of the Masters in an interview with Australian Golf Digest. “I think everybody wins whenever the majors figure out a way to get the best players in the world there.”
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The Masters last week gave a special exemption to LIV player Joaquin Niemann, who won the Australian Open last fall and finished fourth last month at the Hero Dubai Desert Classic. He was also third last weekend at the International Series event in Oman.
Niemann’s victory at the LIV Mayakoba event three weeks ago was not mentioned by Augusta National in extending the invite to Gooch along with two other international players.
“It’s not surprising,” said Gooch, who begins play in the LIV Golf Jeddah event on Friday. “I think the majors have kind of shown that they’re not getting on board with LIV. ‘Jaco’ went outside of LIV and played some great golf and they rewarded him for that. So hopefully the day will turn when the majors decide to start rewarding good play on LIV. Hopefully that will be sooner rather than later.”
Gooch’s only events outside of LIV after the Masters last year where the PGA Championship and the British Open, where he missed the cut, as well as a withdrawal from the Dunhill Links Championship and a tie for 42nd at the Hong Kong Open.
South Africans Dean Burmester and Louis Oosthuizen each won twice last fall on the DP World Tour at South African events but neither are in the Masters this year.
“I think the Official World Golf Ranking has got itself into a real hole,” said LIV player Lee Westwood to Australian Golf Digest. “It’s got itself to a point where it’s obsolete, really, if I’m being totally honest. It’s managed to be so stubborn that it not longer ranks all the best golfers in the world fairly. And it’s gone so far that I don’t see how it can come back from the hoe that it’s in because you can’t backdate them.”
Westwood, like others, suggested the majors need to find another way to invite players instead of OWGR.
But the OWGR board is comprised of the four major championships. Last October, the OWGR officially rejected LIV Golf’s big for accreditation, citing mostly its closed fields (now 54 players) and with a lack of player pathways on and off the tour.