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LIV Golf will finally receive world ranking points, giving the league a significant notch of credibility as it begins its fifth year. But the league is not satisfied with the result.
On the eve of LIV’s 2026 season teeing off in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the Official World Golf Ranking governing board announced that moving forward, the top 10 finishers at LIV’s 57-player events will receive ranking points.
“After conducting an exhaustive and collaborative process, and in an effort to reflect the changing landscape of the men’s professional game, the OWGR board has made the decision to award world ranking points to LIV Golf events for the 2026 season,” an OWGR statement released Tuesday read. “Ranking points will be allocated to the top-10 finishers (and ties) in LIV Golf’s individual stroke play events, which recognises there are a number of areas where LIV Golf does not meet the eligibility standards set out by OWGR.”
The OWGR is a joint operation between the four major championships and top professional tours. The seven-member board includes representatives from Augusta National Golf Club, the PGA of America, the USGA, the R&A, the PGA Tour, the European Tour, and an international representative.
Though it’s a positive development for the league, LIV wasn’t pleased by OWGR limiting the rewarding of points to just the top 10, calling the move “unprecedented.” In a statement, the league said, “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.”
LIV had reapplied for OWGR points in July, its second such effort after an initial attempt in 2023 was denied. Through its first four seasons, players did not earn any world ranking points at LIV events, despite playing for $25 million purses. That led to significant drops in OWGR status for many LIV stars and complicated their pathways into the four major championships.
LIV events will now be ranked based on the OWGR’s standard classification of “small field tournaments” with a “ranking points distribution cutoff” applied to award points to players who finish in the top 10. Players who finish lower than 10th will not receive OWGR points. At most PGA Tour events with 36-hole cuts, players who make the cut (typically the top 70) receive points, while those who miss the cut do not.
“No other competitive tour or league in OWGR history has been subjected to such a restriction,” LIV’s statement said. “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.”
With the new OWGR structure, the top-performing LIV players will be rewarded with world ranking points that will help them qualify for the major championships. However, this won’t change the status of LIV players being banned from the PGA Tour.
The OWGR’s announcement said the “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.”
Among the reasons cited by the OWGR for LIV events only receiving points for the top 10 finishers are:
- LIV’s average field size of 57 for 2026 vs. the minimum of 75 set out in OWGR regulations
- Exclusively no-cut events
- Restrictive pathways to join LIV with two spots filled from the Asian Tour’s International Series and three from a “closed” promotions event
- Self-selection of players with players being recruited rather than earning their place
- 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,” OWGR chairman Trevor Immelman said in a statement. Immelman, also the lead golf analyst for CBS, is a non-voting OWGR member.
“We fully recognised 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,” Immelman said. “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.”
Immelman also acknowledged “substantial and constructive efforts” made by LIV CEO Scott O’Neil.
Should LIV continue to evolve in 2027 and beyond, the OWGR said it will continue to evaluate the league against its eligibility standards, which could result in an increase in points, a decrease in points, or removal from the system altogether.
In response to the news, the PGA Tour released the following statement: “We respect today’s decision by the Official World Golf Ranking governing board and the considerable time the board and chairman Immelman committed to this process.”
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