LIV Golf sounds off after finally receiving World Ranking points

LIV Golf will receive Official World Golf Ranking points beginning this week at its 2026 season-opening event in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

It is the first time in the league's five-year existence that it qualifies for World Ranking points. LIV events will be ranked based on 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 (and ties). The winner will receive the projected equivalent of an alternate-event champion on the PGA Tour.

“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 Trevor Immelman, chairman of OWGR, in a statement. "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. I would like to acknowledge the substantial and constructive efforts made by Scott O’Neil and the team at LIV Golf. We look forward to working with them on implementing this approach with immediate effect for the 2026 LIV Golf season.”

The OWGR board stated LIV was rewarded with points despite falling short on several standards, specifically the "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."

However, in a release, LIV Golf officials sounded off on the decision, feeling the OWGR did not reward the league enough.

"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, 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."

The Saudi-backed circuit fought for OWGR accreditation since its inception before the board rejected its initial application in 2023, questioning the league's "competitive integrity." The OWGR cited two fatal flaws: LIV's 54-hole, no-cut format with 48-player fields, and the restricted pathways both for players to join the circuit and for underperformers to exit it. Then-CEO Greg Norman and multiple LIV members attacked the board for stalling the application while LIV players plummeted down the ranking. The league denounced the rankings as flawed and inaccurate even as officials scrambled to penetrate the system. LIV attempted to bypass the process entirely by partnering with the obscure MENA Tour, calculating that the association would funnel World Ranking points to its members. The OWGR rejected the maneuver, citing insufficient notice and inadequate review time. LIV officials eventually abandoned the campaign.

Several players—most notably Joaquin Niemann and Tyrrell Hatton—traveled to circuits around the globe to prevent their OWGR standing from collapsing and preserve their major championship eligibility. Those who stayed had to rely on major performance alone, causing marquee names like Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka to tumble down the rankings. Hatton is currently the top-ranked LIV player—thanks to a strong U.S. Open showing at Oakmont and high finishes at DP World Tour events—at No. 22 in the OWGR.

However, when O'Neil replaced Norman last year, he launched a renewed campaign for OWGR points. The offensive included enforcing promotion and relegation through the points list—ending the practice of retaining certain LIV players for "business reasons"—creating a promotions event and, most critically, abandoning the 54-hole format that was supposed to anchor LIV's identity. While Rahm has championed the change, LIV's biggest star, Bryson DeChambeau, recently attacked it.

“It’s definitely changed away from what we had initially been told it was going to be,” DeChambeau told Today’s Golfer. “So there is some movement that we’ve all been, I would say, interested in, and going, ‘why that movement?’ Because we were told it was going to be this. So that’s definitely made us have some different thoughts about it.

"I’ve got a contract for this year, and we’ll go through it there and see what happens after that," DeChambeau continued. "Look, it’s 72 holes, it’s changed, but we’re still excited to play professionally and play for what we’re doing and go across the world. I think it’s going to be great for our [Crushers GC] team. Is it what we ultimately signed up for? No. So I think we’re supposed to be different, so I’m a little indifferent to it right now. Hopefully it weighs positively on me over the course of time, but you never know. I’m not sure. We didn’t sign up to play for 72.”

The OWGR news comes after LIV suffered back-to-back blows ahead of its season opener with Koepka and Patrick Reed leaving in favor of returning to the PGA Tour. The league also failed to attract another major talent, instead taking flyers on younger aspiring pros while filling out the rest of its roster with rank-and-file members of other leagues.

In a statement, the PGA Tour said, "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."

Entering its fifth year, LIV will have 13 individual events this season, with a team championship at the end of the campaign.