‘The ball is in their court’ - World Golf Ranking denies conflict with LIV Golf over points application

LIV Golf players have not been able to add to their ranking points this year

(Getty Images)

PGA of America chief executive Seth Waugh insists the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) is not “battling” LIV Golf over its application for world ranking points.

The Saudi-funded breakaway submitted an application to be allowed to award rankings points in its events on July 6 last year.

Waugh is one of the seven members of the OWGR board assessing the application and said in an interview with The Times last week that the organisation was awaiting a response from LIV to a number of queries.

LIV insisted that was not the case and said they had been told “further deliberations” on their application were taking place.

“What I’ve said and what I’ll say now is there has been healthy back and forth. It has not been acrimonious,” Waugh said in a press conference ahead of the 105th US PGA Championship at Oak Hill.

“There’s been collegial back and forth of them making an application as other tours have done. We’ve responded, they’ve responded.

“The ball, from my understanding, is in their court from our last response at this point. That’s where it is.

“This is not an us versus them. I think the OWGR, if you take a step back, the whole point is to create a level playing field, a yardstick by which to measure the game.

“Our job is to measure tours. Not players but tours and how they perform on those tours to come up with that yardstick. That’s what we’re all attempting to try to do.

“We’ve been, I think, very responsive to them in terms of their requests, and they’ve been responsive to us. It isn’t some battle.”

PA