Here’s What LIV Golf’s OWGR Ruling Means for Bryson DeChambeau and Others

LIV Golf events will finally receive points, but with restrictions. Bob Harig explains what that means for big stars and young players looking to move into golf’s elite.

This year Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau can earn World Ranking points at LIV Golf events. | Geoff Burke-Imagn Images

For the first time since its inception four years ago, LIV Golf League players are competing for more than just prize money and a remote chance to earn a single spot in the two major Open championships.

They will also play for Official World Golf Ranking points, which can open paths to each of the four major championships and offer opportunities for LIV players to be compared to their peers around the world.

Tuesday’s announcement that the OWGR board had accredited LIV Golf landed with controversy because the points include some severe conditions.

Only the top 10 players (and ties) in each of LIV’s 57-player fields, starting with this week’s event in Riyadh, will get points. Those finishing 11th through 49th—who would earn a small amount at most any other “small fields tournament” of the same size—are shut out.

LIV Golf complained that the OWGR’s decision is “unprecedented” and that is true. It can also be said that LIV Golf’s format is unprecedented in that none of the other 25 tours around the world arrive at their fields in such a manner.

Putting this in golfer terms, LIV Golf was hoping for Pro V1 golf balls; instead it got a box of Pinnacles.

But here’s the thing: the best of the best can compete with any brand of ball. And so while the avenue to success is small, there is still an avenue, one where a handful of players may climb into the top 50 in the OWGR, which is a typical baseline for major championship inclusion.

Players such as Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton will enhance their already solid OWGR standing with good play on LIV Golf.

Five LIV players would have been top 50 had these points been in place

According to the OWGR social media guru @robopz, five players who competed on LIV Golf the last two years would have finished among the top 50 in the world had the new OWGR guidelines been in place for the last two years: Rahm, DeChambeau, Niemann, Hatton and Patrick Reed (who has left LIV).

Another five would have finished among the top 100: Carlos Ortiz, Dean Burmester, Sergio Garcia, Tom McKibbin and David Puig.

“I think it’s a great step,” said LIV golfer Charles Howell in an interview conducted via LIV Golf. “I don’t necessarily agree with how it was done and the amount of points and only top 10s. But any points is better than no points. I think it’s a start in the right direction.”

Said Burmester: “I was probably doubtful we were going to get them. I think it’s recognition for the league.”

Added Ian Poulter: “Mixed views. First and foremost, it’s good to have LIV recognized finally. That’s a massive plus. On the flip side, I’m not sure what algorithms were they used to work out the points.”

The only thing drastic OWGR did was cut off those receiving points at the top 10.

It is using a Strokes Gained World Rating formula applied to all players, and now it’s using them for LIV players, with some slight adjustments. Bryson DeChambeau, for example, has a very high SGWR due to his excellent play in the majors that doesn’t account for what he did on LIV Golf.

Bryson DeChambeau has remained in the world top 50 thanks to his play in majors; now he'll finally get points from LIV events provided he finishes in the top 10. | Aaron Doster-Imagn Images

Those SGWR points add up to a field rating of 108, which is then distributed across the entire field—but stops at the 10th spot. It means that only 73 points are being awarded, with 23 going to the winner. (That’s more than the winner of this week’s DP World Tour’s Qatar event, which will get 20, but far less than the 59 for this week’s WM Phoenix Open on the PGA Tour.) What happens to the remaining 35 points? They are gone, meaning essentially a 30% “penalty” directed at LIV’s format.

Instead of distributing the points to spots 11 to 49—the cutoff in a 57-player field—they are not dispersed at all, nor are they redistributed to the top 10. It is, in essence, the OWGR’s adjustment that takes into account “the eligibility standings that LIV Golf does not currently meet and the fact that it operates differently from other ranked tours in a number of respects.”

There is no doubt that this penalty is harsh for players who finish outside of the top 10. While you’d have little chance of moving up in the OWGR without top-10 finishes, a few top-20 finishes sprinkled in could help. That opportunity is gone.

“It’s the young guys who have chosen LIV as a pathway for their careers that will suffer most from this decision,” said LIV player Lee Westwood via social media. “Still couldn’t quite do their job and fairly rank the best players in the world could they?!”

Westwood, who is missing the first two LIV events due to injury, isn’t wrong about a young player’s path. It is going to require a lot of high-end golf for players who are new to the league or have very little OWGR standing to move up. But that’s no different than someone who plays on the PGA Tour Americas or the Korn Ferry Tour or even the DP World Tour to some extent.

And Westwood fails to acknowledge what the OWGR put forth: that LIV’s format is in conflict with all the other tours in numerous ways, including field size. But on Tuesday the OWGR stated what is likely its biggest issue:

“The restrictive pathways to join LIV Golf with two spots filled from the Asian Tour’s International Series and three from a ‘closed’ promotions event which does not offset the turnover of players exiting the league; self-selection of players with players being recruited rather than earning their place on the tour in many cases and, in recent days, the addition/removal of players to/from teams based on their nationality rather than for meritocratic reasons.”

How a young LIV Golf rookie can climb up the OWGR

So can a player like Michael La Sasso, who won the NCAA title last year but gave up his final year of college eligibility to sign with LIV Golf, make his way up the rankings? Sure, but it will be difficult.

It will take something along the lines of what Johnny Keefer did on the Korn Ferry Tour last year or what Michael Brennan did on PGA Tour Americas.

Keefer was outside of the top 600 in 2024 but last year had nine top-10s on the KFT, including two victories. He moved into the top 50 by the end of the year to secure a Masters spot.

Brennan began last year outside of the top 70 but won three times on the PGA Tour Americas. He was ranked just outside of the top 100 and was headed to the Korn Ferry Tour when he got a sponsor invite to the Bank of Utah Championship on the PGA Tour—and won.

LIV Golf rookie Michael La Sasso, No. 1640 in the world, can now get OWGR points from LIV events but will need a number of very high finishes to be among the world's best. | Lauren Witte/Clarion Ledger / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

La Sasso’s journey will be made more difficult by fewer events and smaller fields. He can’t earn points beyond LIV top-10 finishes, and he probably needs to play outside of LIV Golf to bring his divisor up (OWGR requires a minimum of 40 events over two years).

He is also starting from much farther back, at No. 1,640 in the OWGR. According to @robopz, he’d need three wins or six solo seconds or 10 solo thirds (or a combination) to have a shot at moving into the top 50.

But LIV’s accreditation has a chance to help the likes of Thomas Detry (No. 62), Laurie Canter (67), Puig (95) and Ben An (111). LIV has five events prior to the Masters and its top-50 cutoff. They’d have virtually zero chance of making it into the first major otherwise.

The announcement was bound to leave those on all sides of the debate unsatisfied. There are many who believed LIV shouldn’t get points at all. And of course others felt LIV should be fully accredited.

Brandel Chamblee chimes in with a surprise opinion

Then there is Brandel Chamblee, the Golf Channel analyst and harsh critic of LIV Golf, who weighed in with an endorsement of OWGR’s decision.

"While my position on LIV Golf is unchanged, I think it was the right thing for the OWGR to do,” he said on social media. “Elite players were falling in the rankings for reasons unrelated to performance which undermined the core claim of the ‘world rankings.’ The OWGR was drifting away from clearly showing ‘who is best’ and the sense was that it was acting as a gatekeeper rather than an evaluator.”

But Chamblee added: “Having said this, in my opinion, the OWGR is still a flawed system of measurement and may have solved a fairness problem but not the truth problem and Data Golf is a much better way of predicting who is most likely to play the best any given week.”

And therein lies yet another debate.