Members of the LIV Golf league will receive points toward the Official World Golf Ranking system on a limited basis, the OWGR governing body announced Tuesday.
The decision allows for players who finish in the top 10 (and ties) of LIV Golf’s individual stroke play events to receive ranking points. Players finishing lower will receive no points.
“The Board’s overriding aim was to identify an equitable way of ranking the best men’s players in the world, including the top performing players in LIV Golf, while taking account of the eligibility standards that LIV Golf does not currently meet and the fact that it operates differently from other ranked tours in a number of respects,” read an OWGR news release.
The breakaway LIV Golf league had sought ranking points when it was founded in 2022. The OWGR board denied the request in October 2023, and LIV reapplied last July.
LIV Golf released a lengthy statement critical of the OWGR’s “unprecedented” limitations, questioning the transparency, credibility and equity of the decision.
“We acknowledge this long-overdue moment of recognition, which affirms the fundamental principle that performance on the course should matter, regardless of where the competition takes place,” LIV Golf said.
“However, this outcome is unprecedented. Under these rules, a player finishing 11th in a LIV Golf event is treated the same as a player finishing 57th. Limiting points to only the top 10 finishers disproportionately harms players who consistently perform at a high level but finish just outside that threshold, as well as emerging talent working to establish themselves on the world stage-precisely the players a fair and meritocratic ranking system is designed to recognize.
“No other competitive tour or league in OWGR history has been subjected to such a restriction. We expect this is merely a first step toward a structure that fully and fairly serves the players, the fans, and the future of the sport.
“We entered this process in good faith and will continue to advocate for a ranking system that reflects performance over affiliation. The game deserves transparency. The fans deserve credibility. And the players deserve a system that treats them equally.”
LIV players will begin to receive ranking points at the league’s opening event this week in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Sports Illustrated reported Tuesday that the points distribution will be similar to those handed out at many DP World Tour events but about half the number of a PGA Tour tournament.
Among OWGR’s reasons for not giving points to more than 10 players is the fact that LIV has a smaller field size than the PGA Tour. It also cited LIV’s “self-selection of players with players being recruited rather than earning their place on the tour in many cases and, in recent days, the addition/removal of players to/from teams based on their nationality rather than for meritocratic reasons.”
“This has been an incredibly complex and challenging process and one which we have devoted a huge amount of time and energy to resolving in the seven months since LIV Golf submitted their application,” said former Masters champion Trevor Immelman, the chairman of OWGR. “We fully recognized the need to rank the top men’s players in the world but at the same time had to find a way of doing so that was equitable to the thousands of other players competing on other tours that operate with established meritocratic pathways.
“We believe we have found a solution that achieves these twin aims and enables the best-performing players at LIV Golf events to receive OWGR points.”
–Field Level Media
