LIV Golf just took a step forward in its long-running battle for recognition-but it’s a step the league feels comes with a heavy caveat.
On Tuesday, the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) board unanimously approved a decision to award world ranking points to LIV Golf events for the first time since the league’s launch in 2022. But there’s a catch: only the top 10 finishers (and ties) at each event will receive points.
That stipulation didn’t sit well with LIV, which fired back with a strongly worded statement calling the move “unprecedented” and “disproportionately harmful” to players who consistently perform well but finish just outside the top 10. According to LIV, the ruling effectively equates a player finishing 11th with one finishing 57th-an outcome they argue undermines the very purpose of a merit-based ranking system.
“We acknowledge this long-overdue moment of recognition,” LIV said. “But 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.”
LIV’s frustration stems not just from the limited point distribution, but from the broader context. No other tour in OWGR history has been subject to such a restriction. And for a league that’s been pushing hard for legitimacy on the global golf stage, this feels like a partial win that still leaves many of its players on the outside looking in.
OWGR’s rationale? It’s about maintaining fairness across the board.
Chairman Trevor Immelman, a former Masters champion and now the face of the ranking system, emphasized the complexity of the decision. “We fully recognized the need to rank the top men's players in the world,” he said, “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.”
In other words, LIV’s structure still doesn’t align with the traditional tour model. Among the key issues: the average LIV field falls short of the OWGR’s 75-player minimum, there’s no cut in LIV events, and the pathway to joining the league isn’t exactly open-it’s largely based on contracts and invitations, not performance-based qualification.
Despite those hurdles, the OWGR board found a way to grant LIV partial inclusion, officially recognizing it as the 25th circuit in the ranking system. The decision is effective immediately, just in time for LIV’s season opener this week in Saudi Arabia.
Still, LIV sees this as just the beginning. “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 league said.
“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.”
For now, only two LIV players-Tyrrell Hatton (No. 22) and Bryson DeChambeau (No. 33)-reside inside the world’s top 50. Five more, including Jon Rahm (No. 97), are in the top 100. And while LIV has made some changes to better align with global standards-expanding from 54 to 72 holes for 2026, for example-the league’s overall model still poses challenges for full OWGR integration.
The OWGR board, under Immelman’s leadership, spent seven months working through LIV’s application. It’s a process that involved constant dialogue with LIV CEO Scott O’Neil and required careful navigation of the tour’s format, structure, and player acquisition model.
The PGA Tour, for its part, issued a measured response, saying it “respected” the OWGR’s decision and acknowledged the “considerable time” Immelman and the board had invested.
This ruling doesn’t end the debate-it just moves the conversation forward. For LIV, the fight for full recognition isn’t over.
But for now, they’ve cracked the door open. Whether it swings wider in the months and years ahead will depend on how the league evolves-and how much pressure it can continue to apply from inside and out.