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British Open champion and LIV Golf (Arab Super League) player, Cameron Smith of Australia, told the Saudi International on the Asian Tour on Thursday that the world ranking system is becoming "obsolete" as a result of not being award points to events in the Saudi-backed series.
Cameron Smith, statements
The 29-year-old won his first major at St Andrews in July and also won the Tournament of Champions in Hawaii, The Players and the PGA of Australia to rise to world number two, before becoming the world's best player.
qualified to move to the lucrative circuit run by his compatriot and 'sports father' of the vast majority of Australian golfers, Greg Norman. Smith is now number four in the OGWR, but other top players who have switched to LIV Golf have plummeted down the rankings.
Former world number one Dustin Johnson, the 2022 LIV and 2020 Masters singles champion, has slipped to 46th place, while 2020 US Open winner Bryson Dechambeau barely touches the top 100. The American has fallen to 96th place.
LIV Golf submitted an application to the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) board last July, but no decision has yet been announced regarding counting the Super League tournaments. "It definitely hurts," Smith said. "I feel like I was very close to No.
1, and that was definitely something I wanted to highlight. I think when you come into a tournament, you know who you have to beat, whether there's a world ranking or not. So Generally, there are seven or eight players on the field that you know are going to put up a lot of trouble.
The longer this goes on though, I think the more outdated those ratings will become. Do we need them? That would be nice, but you know who you need to beat when you go out on the golf course," added Smith. Critics say the LIV Golf, funded by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, is a blatant "sports facelift" by a nation trying to improve its reputation tarnished by a history of human rights abuses.
Smith leads a group of illustrious LIV golfers at the Saudi International, the opening tournament of the Asian Tour season, which is also attended by notables such as DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson and Sergio Garcia.