For the primary time this season, the Official World Golf Rankings will award world rating factors to top-10 finishers at LIV Golf League occasions, the OWGR Board of Administrators introduced Tuesday.
Whereas stating that there are numerous areas in LIV Golf that don’t meet the OWGR eligibility standards, the board voted to award factors to the highest 10 and ties.
LIV golf occasions are ranked as “small match fields” with truncated level distribution. Golfers who end outdoors of the highest 10 is not going to obtain World Rating Factors, and people factors is not going to be redistributed to golfers who end within the prime 10.
The winner of this week’s LIV golf occasion in Saudi Arabia is predicted to earn about 23 world rating factors, lower than half the factors earned by the winner of the PGA Tour’s full-field occasion. 2nd place will likely be roughly 13.4 factors.
Justin Rose gained the PGA Tour’s Farmers Insurance coverage Open final week with about 61 factors, main the world rankings, and 74 golfers scored at the very least 0.55 factors.
Scottie Scheffler, the world’s No. 1 golfer, gained the American Specific on January twenty fifth and earned a world rating of 69.2 factors because of the energy of the sector.
“This has been an extremely complicated and tough course of, and we have now spent vital time and power resolving it within the seven months since LIV Golf submitted its utility,” OWGR Chairman Trevor Immelman mentioned in an announcement. “Whereas we have been totally conscious of the necessity to rank the world’s prime male gamers, we additionally wanted to discover a method to take action that was truthful to the hundreds of different gamers on different excursions that function in keeping with established meritocratic pathways.”
LIV Golf will host a 72-hole match for the primary time this season, and golfers will proceed to play each particular person and group tournaments.
OWGR famous in a information launch Tuesday that the LIV golf occasion doesn’t meet the sector dimension customary of at the very least 75 golfers (LIV has 57). These are strictly uncut occasions. This yr, there will likely be a restricted pathway permitting two golfers from the Asian Tour’s Worldwide Sequence and three golfers from “personal” promotional occasions to take part within the league.
OWGR additionally raised considerations that LIV Golf “typically scouts and self-selects gamers relatively than incomes spots on tour, and extra just lately has added and eliminated gamers from the group based mostly on nationality relatively than meritocratic causes.”
“We imagine we have now discovered an answer that accomplishes these two targets and permits the very best performing gamers in LIV golf occasions to earn OWGR factors,” Immelman mentioned. “We wish to thank Scott O’Neill and the group at LIV Golf for his or her substantial and constructive efforts. We sit up for working with them to implement this strategy with fast impact for the 2026 LIV Golf season.”
In response to a launch from OWGR, LIV Golf is planning additional modifications for the 2027 season.
“As LIV Golf continues to evolve, OWGR will proceed to guage LIV Golf towards OWGR’s eligibility standards, which can end in level will increase, level decreases, or elimination from the system altogether,” the information launch states.
LIV Golf criticized the board’s determination in an announcement, acknowledging “a long-overdue second of recognition that confirms the elemental precept that on-course efficiency issues, no matter the place the competitors takes place.”
“Nonetheless, this result’s unprecedented,” LIV mentioned in an announcement. “Below these guidelines, a participant who finishes eleventh at an LIV golf occasion will likely be handled the identical as a participant who finishes 57th. Limiting factors to the highest 10 would unfairly hurt gamers who constantly carry out at a excessive degree however end just under that threshold, in addition to rising expertise striving to determine themselves on the world stage, the very gamers our truthful, meritocratic rating system was designed to guage.”
“No different aggressive tour or league in OWGR’s historical past has been topic to such restrictions. We hope that is simply step one towards a construction that totally and equitably serves the way forward for our gamers, followers, and the game.”
LIV mentioned it should take part within the OWGR course of in good religion and “proceed to advocate for a rating system that displays efficiency relatively than affiliation.”
“The sport requires transparency,” it mentioned in an announcement. “The followers should be trusted, and the gamers deserve a system that treats them equally.”
LIV Golfers criticized OWGR as “outdated” and “incomplete” as a result of it doesn’t earn factors for world rankings.
Two-time U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau is ranked thirty third on this planet regardless of being second within the OWGR strokes gained rankings.
Former world No. 1 golfer Jon Rahm ranks fifth in strokes gained however 97th in OWGR.
The PGA Tour mentioned in an announcement: “We respect in the present day’s determination by the Official World Golf Rating (OWGR) Board of Administrators and the numerous time the Board and President Immelman have invested on this course of.”
LIV Golf first utilized for OWGR certification in July 2022, one month after the Breakaway Circuit’s first match.
On the time, LIV Golf CEO and commissioner Greg Norman mentioned the tour ought to be awarded world rating factors “via a good, goal and unbiased evaluate.”
Nonetheless, the OWGR Board of Administrators denied LIV Golf’s utility in October 2023, citing considerations about LIV Golf’s lack of attrition amongst its gamers and restricted avenues for different golfers to take part. He additionally had considerations about among the group facets of LIV Golf.
LIV Golf withdrew its utility for OWGR recognition in March 2024, and the Saudi-funded league resubmitted its utility in July 2025.
