{"id":437349,"date":"2025-11-07T01:47:42","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T01:47:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/?p=437349"},"modified":"2025-11-07T01:47:42","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T01:47:42","slug":"lee-westwood-responds-to-rory-mcilroy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/lee-westwood-responds-to-rory-mcilroy\/","title":{"rendered":"Lee Westwood Responds To Rory McIlroy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently, LIV Golf announced that the league will switch to a 72-hole format<\/a>, replacing the 56-hole format it initially used.\u00a0 This was part of the league’s efforts to be recognized by the OWGR, as the players don\u2019t currently get points for global ranking.\u00a0 This brought on criticism for the league from Rory McIlroy, and that, in turn, garnered a response from Lee Westwood.<\/span><\/p>\n

McIlroy\u2019s Comments<\/span><\/h2>\n

Gaining recognition from the OWGR was a promise that LIV Golf made back when the league first launched.\u00a0 A promise that it struggled to follow through on<\/a> ever since.\u00a0 Adopting the 72-hole format will put the league more in line with a traditional golf tournament.\u00a0 Rory McIlroy doesn\u2019t believe this will help the league.\u00a0 He called the move \u201cpeculiar\u201d<\/a> and believes the league could have stuck with the original format.\u00a0 There have been 54-hole tournaments that have received OWGR points in the past.\u00a0 McIlroy has been a vocal critic of the league since it launched, but he is willing to be fair with his criticism.\u00a0 Lee Westwood disagrees with McIlroy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lee Westwood On McIlroy\u2019s Comments<\/span><\/h2>\n

Westwood is a LIV Golfer who has been with the league since its debut in 2022.\u00a0 As a result, he has gone through the struggle of acquiring OWGR points.\u00a0 Regarding McIlroy\u2019s comments, Westwood believes that he will change his mind on the format change in the very near future.\u00a0 Westwood went on talkSPORT for an interview<\/a> on the matter, and he had this to say:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t pay too much attention to what Rory says. He\u2019ll change his mind for next week.\u00a0 I think it was good for the players, good for the sponsors. And good for the fans more than anything. They get to see another day of golf.\u00a0 I think (ranking points) is one of the angles behind it. I think there were a few different things. Some of the guys focused their whole season around the major championships, and playing 54 holes was putting them at a bit of a disadvantage.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Westwood goes on to say that the players wanted to start playing at a 72-hole format, as it is the norm for pro-level tournaments.\u00a0 He also defends the change as a bid for OWGR points, because according to him, it is one of\u00a0 \u201cthe boxes that you need to tick.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Will Westwood Be Proven Right?<\/span><\/h2>\n

As to whether or not McIlroy will change his mind on the format change matter, it will be up to the OWGR.\u00a0 Lee Westwood believes this bid will help the LIV golfers, but that is also up to the OWGR.\u00a0 Granted, it will be good to keep the players in a 72-hole tournament, as their only exposure is outside of LIV Golf.\u00a0 As it stands right now, the LIV golfers have to do double duty on at least two leagues to stay in the rankings.\u00a0 Having the league recognized will, of course, benefit the players.\u00a0 Given that the league has been doing its worldwide tour for three years now, McIlroy will believe it when he sees it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit:\u00a0 \u00a9 Aaron Doster-Imagn Images<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently, LIV Golf announced that the league will switch to a 72-hole format, replacing the 56-hole format it initially used.\u00a0 This was part of the league’s efforts to be recognized by the OWGR, as the players don\u2019t currently get points for global ranking.\u00a0 This brought on criticism for the league from Rory McIlroy, and that, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5429,"featured_media":437350,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,246,200],"tags":[84,34],"class_list":["post-437349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-golf-news","category-liv-golf","tag-lee-westwood","tag-rory-mcilroy"],"modified_by":"Taylor Craig","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5429"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437349"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":437353,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437349\/revisions\/437353"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}