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Viktor Hovland added his voice to that of many of his PGA Tour colleagues to express his opinion about the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR). The Norwegian believes the rankings work as best they can but are not the objective truth.
Hovland currently is participating in the 2024 Arnold Palmer Invitational being played from Thursday, March 7, at Bay Hill in Orlando, Florida. Prior to the start of the event, he addressed the OWGR among other issues related to his current form.
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This is what Viktor Hovland had to say (via Golf Monthly):
"Rankings are rankings, they're not objective truth. They're created to try to rank people the best they can. Obviously, now when you have a huge chunk of really, really good players who are not getting any ranking points, it definitely devalues that ranking. So, at the end of the day, I don't show up out here to try to improve my World Ranking, I show up because I want to win this tournament and that's it."
As the tee time for the first major of the season, The Masters Tournament, has been approaching, several players have expressed their concern with the OWGR's working system.
On the LIV Golf side, Talor Gooch, Jon Rahm and Joaquin Niemann, among others, have all provided their views on the subject. Several PGA Tour members, including Patrick Cantlay and Matt Fitzpatrick, have joined in on the criticism as well.
LIV Golf this week withdrew its application to join the OWGR working system. The application had been submitted in mid-2022 and was denied in October 2023.
A look at Viktor Hovland's first round at the Arnold Palmer Invitational
Viktor Hovland scored 1 under in his first round of the 2024 Arnold Palmer Invitational. The Norwegian struggled at the start of the front nine, but found his best game from hole seven onward.
Hovland bogeyed his first three holes to start the round at 3 over through the 3rd hole. From there he managed to pull himself together and parred from 4th to 6th, to get his first birdie on the 7th.
The Norwegian closed the front nine with a birdie on the 9th to make the turn at one over. On the back nine, he got three more birdies, but bogeyed the 18th, to finish the round at 1 under. This placed him in T25, five strokes behind the current leader, Shane Lowry.
