Players in LIV Golf tournaments will be eligible to receive world ranking points for the first time from this year, the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) announced Wednesday.
A statement from OWGR said ranking points would be issued to players who finish in the top 10 of LIV Golf’s individual stroke play tournaments from 2026 onwards.
The failure of the Saudi Arabia-financed LIV Golf to secure world ranking points for its events has been a stumbling block since the upstart circuit launched in 2022.
Elite LIV Golf players have seen their world rankings nosedive, complicating their ability to qualify for golf’s four major championships, whose fields are largely determined by rankings.
LIV’s three-round 54-hole format had also been an issue preventing acceptance by OWGR. LIV has switched to four-round tournaments this season.
OWGR chairman Trevor Immelman said determining a system for awarding ranking points at LIV events had taken several months.
“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,” Immelman said in a statement.
“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.
“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.”
OWGR said it would continue to evaluate LIV Golf over the next two years.
“As LIV Golf continues to evolve, OWGR will continue to evaluate LIV Golf against OWGR’s eligibility standards, which could result in an increase in points, a decrease in points or removal from the system altogether,” the OWGR said.
LIV Golf however criticised the OWGR decision, saying it did not go far enough and should be widened to offer points to players finishing outside the top 10.
“Under these rules, a player finishing 11th in a LIV Golf event is treated the same as a player finishing 57th,” LIV Golf said in a statement.
“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 recognise.”
Bryson DeChambeau: ‘We didn’t sign up to play for 72 (holes)’
Bryson DeChambeau is entering the final year of his contract with LIV Golf.
Judging by his latest comments to Today’s Golfer, it doesn’t sound like the two-time US Open champion is too keen on one of the recent changes made by the Saudi-funded tour.
Case in point, the impending shift from a 54- to a 72-hole format.
“It’s definitely changed away from what we had initially been told it was going to be,” DeChambeau said. “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. 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.”
DeChambeau, 32, joined LIV Golf in 2022 after recording nine wins on the PGA Tour, including the US Open in 2020 and 2024.