Olympic golfer sounds off on ‘politics’ keeping best LIV pros from Paris 2024

LIV pro Carlos Ortiz is in the field for the men’s Olympic golf event at the 2024 Olympics in Paris, representing Mexico alongside Abraham Ancer. But both players almost missed out on the opportunity thanks to their decision to join LIV, and due to what Ortiz calls “politics” that barred other star LIV golfers from playing in Paris.

It all comes down to world ranking points. Olympic qualification is based on the Official World Golf Ranking, with the top 15 players automatically making the field (with a maximum of four per country), and each country guaranteed two spots for the two top-ranked players from that country.

The problem for LIV players is that the OWGR does not award ranking points for LIV Golf tournaments. So most LIV players have seen their rankings fall drastically, thereby threatening their Olympic qualification chances, as was the case with Ortiz and Ancer. Ancer talked about it in his pre-Olympics press conference on Tuesday.

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“I was definitely sweating it in the last two months because there was really not much that I could play that fit the schedule to get in the World Ranking points,” Ancer explained. “So I just had to wait and see if my World Ranking — because it was starting to plummet fast every week. We were just starting to make calculations and see if it was going to hold on or not. I mean, thankfully, it did.”

He continued, “it was definitely a strange feeling but not complaining now. I’m happy that I’m here.”

For context, Ancer’s best-ever OWGR ranking before joining LIV was 11th. Now he’s ranked 357th. Ortiz’s peak ranking was 44th, and he’s fallen all the way down to 272nd. Ortiz won the 2024 International Series Oman event in February which earned him some ranking points. But he also won the 2024 LIV Golf Houston event in June for which he received no ranking points.

In their joint Olympic press conference, Ortiz took up a different angle than Ancer, criticizing the qualification system and the state of the PGA Tour-LIV feud that he argues kept some of the best golfers out of the Olympics.

“It’s just the situation in golf right now, it’s unfair. Especially Olympic Games, you want to have the best golfers right here, but politics somehow manage things still,” Ortiz lamented on Tuesday. “I still feel there’s golfers that should be here and couldn’t be here because of what has happened, you know. I think the Olympic Games definitely should be neutral, you know. They should have not turned away ranking players accordingly, especially now that the World Ranking points don’t really work anymore.”

When asked what he sees as a possible solution, Ortiz was light on the details beyond sharing the belief that the two sides need to find “common ground,” and arguing that the world ranking qualification system throughout the sport, including at the majors, needs fixing to accommodate LIV players.

“The solution would be people up there to leave their egos on the side and find a common ground. I think there is definitely common ground… and both sides have to give something up to find common ground,” Ortiz said. “I believe both of us should be playing majors. I think we played great golf this year, and it’s hard to get in them. I tried to qualify for the British Open. I just barely missed. But you know, there should be a way for us to get in there, a simpler way.”

Ancer, who clarified that he doesn’t “get too involved in politics,” offered an interesting Olympic qualification solution that has potential to work: allow countries to select players themselves.

“I think it would be great if the countries can get to pick who they bring and just be like, ‘hey, these are the guys that we believe have a chance to win a medal,’ or ‘this is the guys that I want to bring,'” Ancer argued. “Maybe that would be a way to fix it. It’s not going to be easy. Not everybody is going to be happy.”

While big LIV stars like Bryson DeChambeau are missing from the Olympic field, there are still several other LIV players who will compete at Le Golf National. The men’s fight for gold begins early Thursday morning.