LIV Golfer Wins OWGR-Sanctioned Event
Carlos Ortiz won the V Copa Prissa on the Gira De Golf Professional Mexicana to move up 11 places in the world rankings
Thanks to LIV Golf’s inability to offer Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) points, its players have had to seek opportunities to do so elsewhere.
While the likes of Lee Westwood and Patrick Reed have turned to both the Asian Tour and DP World Tour to accumulate points in recent months, another LIV Golf player, Carlos Ortiz, took part in the V Copa Prissa on a circuit more recently granted OWGR eligibility – the Gira De Golf Professional Mexicana (GGPM).
Ortiz will not be regretting his decision to play in his homeland either, after he won the tournament by two shots over Isidro Benitez to claim just over 1.8 points. That ensured a jump up the world rankings of 11 places from World No.275 to World No.264.
The GGPM was only granted world ranking points status at the start of the year, having been formed in 2017. Like LIV Golf, its tournaments are played over 54 holes, albeit with a cut after the first two rounds.
Like many other LIV Golf players, Ortiz’s world ranking has plummeted since signing for it. As he competed in his first tournament last year in Portland, Oregon, Ortiz was ranked World No.119. However, before his win at the weekend, opportunities to arrest the slide since then had been limited to just two Asian Tour events – February’s Saudi International, where he missed the cut and so failed to accumulate points, and a tie for 43rd in the International Series Oman the week after, which yielded just 0.35 points.
While the GGPM offers another chance for Ortiz to move back up the world rankings, he still has some way to go to recover his career high of World No.44, which he achieved in February 2021. The circuit also offers considerably slimmer pickings than the options available to Ortiz had he remained with the PGA Tour, where he has won once.
In contrast to the number of points Ortiz claimed for his victory at the weekend, the winner of the PGA Tour’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, Kurt Kitayama, amassed over 67 OWGR points after edging out Rory McIlroy and Harris English at Bay Hill. Meanwhile, even a tie for 39th in that tournament, which was shared by 14 players including World No.1 Jon Rahm, handed them more points than Ortiz for his win, demonstrating how much more difficult his efforts to gain OWGR points are nowadays.
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Mike has over 25 years of experience in journalism, including writing on a range of sports throughout that time, such as golf, football and cricket. Now a freelance staff writer for Golf Monthly, he is dedicated to covering the game's most newsworthy stories.
He has written hundreds of articles on the game, from features offering insights into how members of the public can play some of the world's most revered courses, to breaking news stories affecting everything from the PGA Tour and LIV Golf to developmental Tours and the amateur game.
Mike grew up in East Yorkshire and began his career in journalism in 1997. He then moved to London in 2003 as his career flourished, and nowadays resides in New Brunswick, Canada, where he and his wife raise their young family less than a mile from his local course.
Kevin Cook’s acclaimed 2007 biography, Tommy’s Honour, about golf’s founding father and son, remains one of his all-time favourite sports books.
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