Jon Rahm’s press conference ahead of the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai started with the Spaniard receiving honorary life membership on the tour and ended with him unloading on the “laughable” Official World Golf Ranking.
The 28-year-old has become one of the best quotes in golf over the last few years and is known to speak his mind. Wednesday was no different.
“I’m going to be as blunt as I can. I think the OWGR right now is laughable. Laughable. Laughable,” said Rahm. “The fact that the (PGA Tour’s RSM Classic) doesn’t have any of the top 20 in the world has more points than this event where we have seven of the top 20 is laughable. The fact that Wentworth had less points than Napa, having players in the top 10 in the world is laughable.”
The OWGR website projects this week’s winner of the RSM Classic in Sea Island, Georgia, will receive 38.38 points. The DP World Tour Championship winner is projected to receive 21.82.
“I understand what they are trying to do with the depth of field but having the best players in the world automatically makes the tournament better. I don’t care what their system says,” he continued. “I think they have made a mistake. I think some aspects of it might be beneficial but I think they have devalued the value of the better players.
“Depth of field doesn’t mean better tournament. I could go on and on. I think they have missed the mark on that stance quite a bit.”
During his press conference on Tuesday, Rory McIlroy bluntly explained the points discrepancy between this week’s PGA and DP World tour events.
“Yeah, so when you look at two different fields, you’ve got a 50-man field (in Dubai) versus a 144-man field (in Georgia). So just in terms of how the strengths of field is calculated, they have 90 more players to contribute to their strength of field,” said McIlroy. “So the reason that this has got 21 points and the RSM has got 39 is the person that wins the RSM has to beat 139 other guys. You only have to beat 49 other guys here. It’s a much fairer system.”
McIlroy’s Ryder Cup teammate begs to differ.
“But would you rather win a tournament when you have the No. 1 player in the world there or because you have the 30th or 6th there?” asked Rahm. “I think it’s more valuable if you’re beating the best players in the world. I think a lot of people would agree and I think it should reflect that.”
Rahm, who boasts seven wins on the PGA Tour and eight on the DP World Tour, freely admitted the math for point calculations is above his pay grade and he doesn’t know the precise way to fix the ranking.
“I understand what they were trying to do when they changed some things,” said Rahm, “but I think like I said, they missed the mark.”
Rahm is far from the first player to be critical of the OWGR this year, but the majority of the criticism has come from across the professional golf aisle. LIV Golf, the upstart series led by Greg Norman and backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, has been fighting for points since its inception earlier this summer. None of LIV’s first eight events earned OWGR points after the circuit applied for accreditation in July. The circuit formed a strategic alliance with the developmental MENA Tour to try and force its way to receiving points, but was unsuccessful. LIV players like Patrick Reed, Graeme McDowell, and Bryson DeChambeau have all called out the ranking system.
“I think a lot of people are against (LIV) having world ranking points. I’m not necessarily against it but there should be adjustments,” Rahm explained. “If your requirement is to have world ranking points as 72 holes and a cut, maybe you don’t award them 100 percent of the points since they are not fulfilling all of the requirements.”