LIV Golf will be officially recognized by the Official World Golf Ranking this year, but it comes with a caveat.
OWGR announced Tuesday that the fledgling league will receive world ranking points for its 14 events this season, ending LIV’s nearly four-year journey for accreditation. However, the OWGR awards points only to the top 10 finishers in LIV events.
This news comes only after LIV dramatically changed its format in the past year under CEO Scott O’Neill in an effort to compromise with the OWGR board. LIV, so named after the Roman numerals for 54, began with 54 players playing 54 holes. Starting with this week’s season-opening event in Saudi Arabia, LIV events feature 57 players competing over 72 holes.
With this point distribution, a normal LIV event winner would earn the equivalent of a win in a PGA Tour alternate-field event like the Myrtle Beach Classic.
The importance of OWGR centers on qualifying for the majors. The top 50-ranked golfers in the world automatically make the Masters and the Open Championship, and historically are invited to the PGA Championship. The top 60 qualify for the U.S. Open. That reliance on the OWGR has made it difficult for LIV golfers to earn spots in majors without relying on exemptions for past success, leading many to earn points on other foreign tours. OWGR is governed by the four major championship bodies, as well as the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour.
While this is a coup for LIV, it also likely leaves the league wanting more. The OWGR statement acknowledged that LIV Golf is planning further changes for the 2027 season.
LIV launched in 2022, promising its players that ranking points would soon come. They plummeted in the rankings while the initial LIV CEO, Greg Norman, attempted to expedite the usual 12-18-month application period. That attempt was rejected, and in October 2023, LIV’s application was formally denied.
The reasoning was that a no-cut league playing 54 holes in a closed-shop format, with guaranteed contracts and very little relegation or promotion, would be the best option. The OWGR argued that it was impossible to mathematically compare LIV players fairly with tours that have open qualifying.
Former OWGR Chairman Peter Dawson said: “To obtain inclusion in the OWGR system, it is necessary for you to develop a structure that invites new players based on objective, recent performance and relegates under-performing players more quickly and equitably.”
The next step was to find alternative solutions for LIV golfers, and LIV found some success. The U.S. Open and Open Championship both created an automatic pathway for the highest-ranked golfer in the LIV standings not already exempt. That was the first formal recognition that LIV golf performance correlates with qualification.
However, when O’Neill joined in January 2025, he refocused LIV’s attention on the OWGR. He worked with OWGR chairman Trevor Immelman to make concessions, like switching to 72 holes and removing some of the league’s safeguards for stars who played below the relegation line.
There would be no more unearned wild-card guarantees, and the 2025 season concluded with a team captain, Henrik Stenson, being relegated. Even with these additions, the tour still faces competitive issues, such as having to contractually give spots to new signings, and Japan’s Jinichiro Kozuma was dismissed from the league after his team rebranded as an all-Korean outfit.
“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 in a statement, which also clarified that the OWGR will continue to evaluate LIV against its eligiblity standards.
Bryson DeChambeau is unsure of LIV’s changes for 2026. (Raj Mehta / Getty Images)
The news comes amid a turbulent time for LIV. Five-time major winner Brooks Koepka left LIV in December and almost immediately rejoined the PGA Tour. It offered the same deal to LIV stars Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and Cameron Smith, with a Feb. 2 deadline, but they all declined.
Then, 2018 Masters champ Patrick Reed left LIV after failing to agree to a new contract. He announced he plans to rejoin the PGA Tour once his suspension for playing on LIV concludes at the end of the 2026 season.
On top of this, some of LIV’s biggest stars have voiced frustration with the recent changes. DeChambeau, considered LIV’s most valuable asset, told Today’s Golfer:
“It’s definitely changed away from what we had initially been told it was going to be. 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.”
The OWGR decision will provide a better pathway to majors for elite LIV performers, but it still offers far fewer points than comparable tours.
The Athletic conducted a data analysis, aided by Gemini, to quantify where LIV golfers would rank in the OWGR had this decision been made before the 2025 season.
For example, Jon Rahm would jump from No. 97 to No. 14. Joaquin Niemann, with his five LIV wins in 2025, would go from No. 155 to 19th. But somebody like Talor Gooch, who finished sixth in the LIV standings, would still only rank No. 102 and outside of major qualification.