The Official World Golf Ranking has announced that LIV Golf players will receive ranking points starting from this week’s season-opening event in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The governing board of the OWGR decided that only the top 10 players at each LIV event will receive ranking points. However, while LIV Golf has welcomed the ranking points, the Saudi-backed league has criticised the decision to award ranking points only to its top 10 players.
Also Read: LIV Golfers’ World Rankings Continue to Plummet
Why Only Top 10 LIV Golf Players Will Earn OWGR Points
The announcement of ranking points for LIV Golf comes after several months of protracted negotiations. LIV Golf first applied for OWGR ranking points in 2023 but will finally receive ranking points for the first time since founding the league five years ago. The OWGR said only the top 10 players will receive ranking points, and the field rating from each LIV Golf event will be the same as those of opposite-field events on the PGA Tour. The OWGR will rank LIV Golf events under its standard classification of ‘Small Field Tournaments’ with a ‘ranking points distribution cutoff.’ As a result, LIV event winners are projected to earn 23 ranking points at this week’s event.
According to the OWGR, LIV Golf failed to meet the organisation’s eligibility standards, including its self-selection of players, as the league recruits players rather than requiring them to earn their place on the tour. It also mentioned the addition or removal of players to or from teams based on their nationality rather than on meritocratic reasons. The governing board also said the average LIV field falls well below the minimum of 75 set out in the ranking criteria, making it a key reason for awarding ranking points to only the top 10 players.
“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,” chairman of OWGR, Trevor Immelman said. “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.
LIV Golf Expresses Frustration Over OWGR Decision
LIV Golf has reacted to the decision of the OWGR to award ranking points to only the top 10 players at its events. The breakaway league said it welcomes the ranking points but believes the OWGR did not give it the reward it deserves.
“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,” read the statement. “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,” LIV Golf said in a statement.
The OWGR rejected LIV Golf’s first ranking application in 2023, and only England’s Tyrrell Hatton and Bryson DeChambeau are in the top 50 of the world rankings, with just five other players in the top 100.
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