Aussie events shine light on world ranking relevance

That issue has been a major point of contention in world golf, with players sliding down the rankings, although LIV player Cam Smith has managed to maintain his World No.3 spot after winning the Australian PGA last week.

“I don't know. It’s hard to say. I know in myself that I’m right up there,” Smith said Tuesday at the Australian Open when asked if he is worried about rankings and not reaching No.1. “I’m still third on the list somehow, but as time goes on, I think those rankings become more and more irrelevant, especially with not getting world ranking points in those LIV events.”

Smith’s fellow Australian LIV golfer, and two-time winner of the Australian Open, Matt Jones certainly agrees with the Queenslander’s assessment of the points system being irrelevant.

“Very clearly (they are irrelevant),” Jones told Golf Australia magazine. “You’ve got Sergio outside the top-100 in the world I think next week. You’re going to have DJ projected to come Augusta he may be outside the top-100 in the world and he is a top-10 golfer in the world right now. There is something wrong.”

“I don’t think you can call anything official, you can call them world rankings, you can call them PGA Tour rankings. But you can’t call them official world rankings.”

There is two photos I’ve posted, one is a result I had at the Aus PGA at the start of the year which was just an Aus Tour event I came 9th and got 4.48 points. The other is last week a DP tour event with Cam playing, I came 6th and got 2.01 points. WTF is this shit!! 🤬🤬 pic.twitter.com/GehIOlDILe

— David Micheluzzi (@DavidMicheluzzi) November 28, 2022

Beyond the LIV issue is the change in the system that has seen the ranking become more American centric than ever before.

Australian pro David Micheluzzi highlighted the issue on Twitter after his sixth place finish at last week’s Australian PGA.

Finishing 9^th in the same event back in January, when the PGA was only a PGA Tour of Australasia event and without the star, and ranking power, of Smith, Adam Scott, Marc Leishman, Ryan Fox and the Hojgaard twins, Micheluzzi received more than double the amount of points than last week.

That a DP World Tour co-sanctioned event, with big names offers less points to players is hard to wrap your head around. And perhaps gives more credence to the admittedly slightly biased view point of the LIV crowd that the system has lost its relevance.