| LIV Golf, Tiger, OWGR and things that affect Indian golf in 2023  Tiger Woods will be the most closely watched golfer in 2023 (Source: Reuters) It’s uncanny how similar a new year is to a new round of golf. You approach both with so much hope and optimism. Even if you are in the middle of a poor run of form, you just go in with the feeling that this would be the round where everything is going to turn around. In almost 30 years of reporting golf and playing it myself, I have rarely come across a professional or a club golfer who does not get excited by what the future holds over the next 18 holes. It’s an innate behaviour of a human being. Even with terrible things happening around you, there is always a ray of hope that this too shall pass. Many players and my journalist colleagues have expressed disappointment over what has happened in 2022. LIV Golf, they say, has divided our sport. It has completely hijacked every news agenda. Most reporting is driven by prevalent sentiments of the region in which the media organisation operates, which is why we have such negative coverage of a Saudi Arabia-supported initiative in the US and the UK. For countries like India and southeast Asia, Saudi is an important ally, and we haven’t had any political issues with them, and hence the media has been fairly positive in this part of the world. I enjoy being part of the action on the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour and the history that they have. And I have always enjoyed LIV Golf as a great disruptor and how it can mould the future. It has already shaken up the way professional and amateur golf has been played for years. Are all the changes good? Perhaps not. But when we sit back and look at the events many years later, we will probably thank that LIV happened. ust have a look at the treatment of India’s domestic circuit, the PGTI, from the PGA Tour and DP World Tour alliance. In 2021, the Tour had approached the PGA Tour for financial help as it struggled to come out of the pandemic-related lockdown. From what I have been told, the request was thrown out at that time. But thanks to the threat of LIV Golf, they have had to show some magnanimity this time. So, as we step into 2023 with renewed optimism, I am looking forward to... The future of LIV Golf...2022, as Greg Norman said several times, was when LIV Golf operated in beta phase. This year, we are more likely to see the final product that has caught the imagination of so many top players in the world, including the activation of franchises by the end of the year.  Greg Norman and Cam Smith (Source: LIV Golf) There are a couple of important court dates in 2023. It starts with a hearing in the UK in February that would decide the fate of LIV players teeing it up on the DP World Tour. The other lawsuits involve the PGA Tour and LIV. Then, there is also the application to OWGR to grant them world ranking points. These decisions could set the tone of the how LIV grows beyond 2023. Tiger’s comeback...The great man has shown us once again that quite astonishingly, he can surmount all kinds of physiological and biological barriers. As was evident in the couple of rounds he played in December at The Match and PNC Championship, he has been able to somehow string together a swing that is faster and more explosive than all his previous versions. Experts of the game will tell you that golfers generate most of their speed using the ground. Woods is producing all the power through his upper body and arms. Now, if only his legs listen to him! Even at age 47, he can be contending for titles on the right kind of golf courses. Solving the OWGR conundrum...Either the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR), needs to change, or the majors, the WGCs and the Invitational need to change their exemption categories. The present system is making it impossible for players from most international tours to make it to elite events. If you take out Cam Smith and other LIV Golf players, there are only three non-PGA Tour players inside the top-50 of the OWGR now – Ryan Fox, Thomas Pieters and Adrian Meronk. The highest-ranked non-PGA Tour and non-DP World Tour player is Japan’s Kazuki Higa (No68). And let us not forget our two Indian heroes in 2022 – Manu Gandas, winner of six tournaments on the PGTI to move from No629 to No486, and Yuvraj Singh, who fell from 308 at the end of April to 391 despite winning three titles in the period and five overall during the year. The PGTI to use its new riches wisely...I have written a full newsletter on this, but now that they have the eyes and ears of the PGA Tour and DP World Tour alliance, and a decent amount of dollars, I am very interested in knowing how this money is spent. As I have said before, I can understand the pressure from the membership to use the money as tournament prize purse, but there are some very essential upgrades and servicing that needs to be done for the tour. The new-look IGU to also show new thinking...Again, this was the subject tackled in a complete newsletter. But a few things have happened after that. IGU’s DG Major General Bhushan gave an interview to a national daily, where he has promised that new changes are coming following the Executive Council meeting on January 7. We can’t wait for these announcements and expect them to be made with the backing of a plan that can be executed. Asian Tour’s reaction to PGTI’s new alliance...By joining hands with the DP World Tour, the PGTI has essentially cut its decade-long ties with the Asian Tour (which has been referred to as an ‘enemy’ by Keith Pelley on more occasions than one). There will be some very interesting fallout for the players, starting with how many country spots are now given to the PGTI by the Asian Tour, and the co-sanctioning of the DGC Masters, which is a tournament owned by the Asian Tour. What was great about the the Asian Tour was that it gave nearly 20-odd leading Indian players an opportunity to play. That will now be cut down to only 9-10 players who have some status on the Tour. Others will have to rely on Qualifying School. In comparison, only one Indian will be able to graduate to the DP World Tour through the new coalition. | 
