Fitzpatrick: A Two-Year Wait For World Ranking Points

Who would have thought at the start of 2022 that the subject of world ranking points would be the hot topic week in, week out as the LIV Golf stars seek to get their hands on some much-needed points?

All 48 players who played in Chicago earlier this month sent a joint letter to the OWGR chairman Peter Dawson, urging him to award ranking points, while the application for world ranking status remains under review. There are currently 23 sanctioned men’s pro golf tours and LIV wants to be the 24th.

To give you an idea of how skewed things are, as things stand Dustin Johnson, who has won bucket loads of cash in recent months to go with his whopping signing-on fee, is now the World No. 23. Bryson DeChambeau is now down in 46th while Lee Westwood is 101st.

US Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick, playing with his mum in the Dunhill Links this week, believes that it will be some time before the LIV players get what they're after.

"I understand why they think they deserve points because of the players they've got, and don't disagree with that, but if you look at the all the other tours in previous years that have gone through the official process then it takes a year or two," Fitzpatrick told Sky Sports News.

"You've just got to wait two years - that's what I've been told is the process and that's what it is. I did read somewhere that they should backdate the points to when they had the first event, which is just ridiculous."

The suggestion now is that one or two players might now be regretting their big-money move and Fitzpatrick added that their thinking might have been a bit messy.

"You knew what you were signing up for before you went and if you'd done your homework then you know that the process takes a year or two, so you probably had to accept that and that is just the rules of the game. When you see pound signs it maybe clouds your thinking a little bit. I think it's one of those that with the decision you made, you had to sit down and take every aspect into consideration.

"World ranking points was probably on the list, but obviously there probably wasn't a real deep dive into when the chances of getting them are. They've got to fit in a lot of criteria that they're not fitting currently and that's just the way it is unfortunately."

Rory McIlroy, back in St Andrews, was playing a straight bat with his thoughts on the matter.

"If they meet the criteria they get world ranking points," McIlroy told Sky Sports News. "I don't see any reason why they shouldn't, as long as they meet the criteria that is set out. The one thing that has been frustrating from the start of this is that they don't want to play by the rules that have been in place for so long. It can't be one set of rules for a certain amount of people and then a certain set of rules for everyone else - everyone has to abide by the same rules here.

"If they're willing to abide by the rules then 100 per cent they should get world ranking points, but the way everything is right now and the way their tour is set up, I just think it makes it very difficult for them to make that argument."