LIV Golf’s move raises more questions than answers for Rory McIlroy

LIV Golf’s latest move shocked many in the golf world, but it left Rory McIlroy with more questions than answers.

On Tuesday, LIV Golf announced a surprising change to its tournament format, moving all events to 72 holes, effective immediately. The move brings the breakaway league more in line with professional golf’s competitive structure and should remove one of the barriers to entry into the Official World Golf Rankings, which will provide LIV players with the world ranking points they need to qualify for major championships.

However, speaking ahead of the 2025 Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship at Yas Links on Wednesday, McIlroy was unsure whether the massive changes to the Rebel Alliance would have the desired impact.

“I thought it was a strange move because I thought they could get ranking points through three rounds,” McIlroy said. “I don’t think three wheels versus four wheels is what’s holding them back.

“It definitely puts them more in line with a traditional golf tournament than what we do. It makes them less of a true disruptor and more in line with what everyone else is doing. But if that’s what they think they need to do to get ranking points, I guess that’s what they have to do.”

LIV Golf’s move to 72 holes has been rumored for some time, but this is just as shocking. The move to 72 holes goes against the league’s brand and original selling point, which was to streamline the viewing experience with a 54-hole, shotgun-start tournament that would make golf more accessible in an age of short attention spans. However, LIV could never overcome the fact that OWGR status qualified the league for major championships, and the league needed to have as many players as possible in the major fields to attract new players and gain a foothold in the professional golf market.

While LIV’s move to 72 holes may be the key to getting into the OWGR, McIlroy isn’t sure how much it will help the league after players’ world rankings plummeted for years.

“I think what’s difficult is you have LIV players and say they have the potential to get world rankings, but because they’re going to be so weak because a lot of them have fallen down in the rankings because they haven’t had ranking points for a long time, I don’t know if the ranking points are really going to benefit them,” McIlroy said. “It will be interesting to see how that plays out.”

As far as McIlroy is concerned, LIV currently has only three players – Tyrrell Hatton, Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed – ranked in the top 50 in the world. Jon Rahm is currently ranked 71st. However, changes to the OWGR algorithm three years ago may soften the blow to LIV. OWGR used to calculate tournament strength solely based on its own ranking. But in 2022, OWGR changed the algorithm to include a metric called “Strikes Earned World Rating,” which takes into account not only your results in the tournament, but also your strokes relative to your field. When the 2022 news broke, GOLF’s Sean Zak wrote a detailed explanation of the metric.

Currently, world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler leads the OWGR with a 3.547 batting average. But DeChambeau, ranked 23rd, was second with 2.893. Rahm is fifth, behind McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood. You can see how this change will help LIV Golf Courses earn more points compared to field strength based solely on OWGR rankings.

OWGR’s position on LIV Golf has been consistent since LIV Golf first applied to join. The “closed shop” nature of the league and the restrictions of the tournament (54 holes, no eliminations, smaller field sizes) make it difficult to fairly distribute points.

Now that LIV has moved to 72 holes and is trying to make it more of an “open shop” by offering more spots through promotions and international series, the league’s progress toward OWGR should speed up.

Time will tell how this move will change the breakaway league and the fragmented state of professional golf.

”>