LIV GOLF GETS WORLD RANKING POINTS BUT OFFICIALS QUESTION 'FAIRNESS' OF DECISION
Top 10 players will be eligible to receive Official Golf World Ranking points, starting from this week's season-opener in Riyadh
LIV Golf players will be able to earn world ranking points for the first time, starting with this week's season-opener in Riyadh on Wednesday, but league officials were not entirely happy with the decision.
In a statement released early on Wednesday, the Official Golf World Ranking body said players finishing in the top 10 of the individual competition would be eligible as it looked to "reflect the changing landscape of the men's professional game".
However, while welcoming the "long‑overdue moment of recognition", LIV criticised the "unprecedented" move to limit the number of its players who would receive points.
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The failure to award LIV world ranking points for its events has been a bone of contention since the tour launched in 2022, and elite players who joined the league saw their rankings, and ability to qualify for the four majors, take a hit as a result.
In a move to try and make the tour more palatable, LIV has switched from 54 holes to the traditional four-round format from this season, and has increased the number of players who can be relegated to around 20 per cent of the 57-man field.
Trevor Immelman, the OWGR chairman, said determining a system for awarding ranking points had been "an incredibly complex and challenging process".
"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.
"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."
In response, LIV said while the decision affirmed the "the fundamental principle that performance on the course should matter, regardless of where the competition takes place," it questioned the fairness of limiting points.
The winner in Riyadh will receive 23 points, with 13 for second and a sliding scale finishing with 2.7 points for 10th. This week's Phoenix Open on the PGA Tour awards 59 points to the winner, with 35 for second, and the player finishing 65th getting a nominal 0.7.
"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," LIV said in a statement.
"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.
"We entered this process in good faith and will continue to advocate for a ranking system that reflects performance over affiliation. The game deserves transparency. The fans deserve credibility. And the players deserve a system that treats them equally."
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This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), the leading news media reporting on China and Asia.
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2026-02-04T01:23:17Z
