LIV Golf events will be allocated world ranking points for the 2026 season, it has been announced.
The Governing Board of the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) said the decision came after “conducting an exhaustive and collaborative process, and in an effort to reflect the changing landscape of the men’s professional game”.
Ranking points will be allocated to the top-10 finishers in LIV Golf’s individual stroke play events. The OWGR determined that LIV events would be classified as ‘small field tournaments’.
“Ranking points will be allocated to the top-10 finishers [and ties] in LIV Golf’s individual stroke play events, which recognizes there are a number of areas where LIV Golf does not meet the eligibility standards set out by OWGR,” the organization said in a statement.
“LIV Golf events will be ranked based on OWGR’s standard classification of ‘Small Field Tournaments’ with a ‘Ranking points distribution cutoff’ applied to award points to players who finish in the top 10 [and ties]. Players who finish lower than 10th will not receive OWGR points and those points will not be redistributed to the players finishing 10th or higher.
The OWGR board said its “overriding aim was to identify an equitable way of ranking the best men’s players in the world, including the top performing players in LIV Golf”, but also took into account the different eligibility standards from the Saudi-backed events from other ranked tours, such as average field size of 57, no-cut events and “self-selection of players” being recruited rather than earning their place on the tour.
LIV Golf’s fifth season commences in Riyadh this week in the wake of the high profile departures of Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed, the former returning to the PGA Tour under the ‘Returning Member Programme’, while the latter will play on the DP World Tour until he is once eligible to play in PGA Tour events in August this year.