LIV GOLF PLAYERS SLAM ‘MOCKERY’ OF WORLD RANKINGS SYSTEM
Lee Westwood’s tie for 34th at The Open Championship vaulted him 3,759 spots in the Official World Golf Ranking.
Now at No. 930, Westwood is now back ahead of his son, Sam, a mini-tour player who currently sits 2,759th. That served as Exhibit 1 for the Englishman’s rant against the world rankings system.
“I think that just proves that without world ranking points it makes a bit of a mockery of the system,” Westwood said on Wednesday ahead of this week’s LIV Golf UK event.
The comments came after the league re-applied for submission to the OWGR last month. That submission currently is under review.
LIV originally applied for accreditation in July of 2022, shortly after the league launched, but was denied. LIV golfers currently can only earn ranking points by competing in major championships and international tour events.
With limited ability to amass points via the DP World Tour and other tours, LIV players like Westwood have continued to plummet down the OWGR. Dustin Johnson, who spent 135 weeks at No. 1, dropped as low as 907th before a T23 last week vaulted him back up to 571st.
The current Top 50 includes only two LIV players: No. 16 Bryson DeChambeau and No. 21 Tyrrell Hatton of England.
Westwood applauds LIV’s recent second submission and believes that without earning OWGR, the four major championships will have to alter their processes to include more LIV players in the future.
“I think mainly it relates back to wanting the best players in the major championships, not wanting this conversation where there’s a few people missing out because we don’t get world ranking points on LIV,” he said.
“We either start to get world ranking points on LIV or the major championships have to revise their qualification system, which they seem — some of them seem to want to do but some seem reluctant to do, and they’d have to have a separate qualification system for LIV players, which I don’t think anybody particularly wants. You want it all to be based off the same system.”
That he was able to jump more than 3,000 spots based off a tie for 34th at one event speaks to the core issues Westwood has with the system. Jon Rahm’s issues with the OWGR pre-date joining LIV in December 2023, and supports a system that focuses more on key playing metrics.
“I already thought it was flawed before I ever came, and I was vocal about it,” he said. “So I think the last few years, even the world ranking itself and both Data Golf do a strokes gained ranking, and I think that much more reflects who truly is playing the best because the actual points being a two-year ranking, you can have a poor week or a poor three weeks, and that will hold you down for two whole years.
“It’s crazy how you can actually finesse a little bit of the system by playing certain weeks and not playing certain weeks and things like that. It’s always going to be somewhat accurate but not the most, and I think strokes gained usually is going to be the better representation of how truly everybody is playing.”
For now, LIV players will continue to tumble down the OWGR. Sure, they can accumulate some points on other tours outside of LIV events, but the next major isn’t until the Masters next April. And unless they are included in the OWGR, it will become increasingly difficult for LIV players to qualify for the four biggest tournaments each year.
LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil said earlier this month that he hopes the approval process can progress ahead of the 2026 major season.
“I think there are a lot of guys out here that you certainly want to be playing in majors. If there’s a better pathway for that for us, then that’s brilliant,” Hatton said.
“There are a lot of guys out here, their current world ranking doesn’t reflect the type of golfer that they are, and I think everyone would like to think everyone sitting here would agree with that statement.
“I guess the sooner the world rankings can become a little bit more realistic again, the better it is for golf.”
PLAYERS ANGLE FOR FEDEX CUP POINTS AT 3M OPEN
Most of the world’s elite golfers are taking the week off after the Open Championship, but for the second tier of PGA Tour players, it’s time to lock in and bolster their resumes.
With two weeks to go in the regular season, players will be all business at the 3M Open, beginning Thursday at TPC Twin Cities in Blaine, Minn.
There’s no shortage of recognizable names in the field — Sam Burns, Wyndham Clark, South Korea’s Sungjae Im and Australia’s Adam Scott among them — as they try to stack up FedEx Cup points before the regular season concludes next week at the Wyndham Championship.
For Tony Finau, a former 3M Open champion, the stakes are certainly higher than usual. At No. 59 in the points race, he’s inside the top 70 who will qualify for the FedEx Cup playoffs, but only the top 50 after the first playoff leg will advance. Finishing inside the top 50 also means access to next year’s signature events.
“Yeah, it’s definitely in the back of my mind because I know how important that top-50 number is,” Finau said Wednesday. “So it’s definitely something in the back of my mind, but that’s really where it is, it’s back. At the forefront of my mind this week is playing good golf … If you play good golf, it always — things always take care of themselves.”
Finau has played all six editions of the 3M Open and never finished worse than T28. Of his 24 rounds at the par-71, 7,431-yard TPC Twin Cities, he’s only shot worse than 70 once. Finau followed his breakthrough victory in 2022 with T7 and T12 finishes the past two years.
“Winning in ’22 is a highlight, but I’ve had some nice finishes,” Finau said. “It’s a golf course that I enjoy playing, usually yields some birdies and I always look forward to being back here in Minnesota.”
Lee Hodges set the tournament scoring record of 24-under 260 when he won in 2023, and Venezuela’s Jhonattan Vegas prevailed last year for his first victory on tour since 2017.
“To be honest, it’s been kind of nice to see a pretty solid field this week,” Vegas said. “And I mean, these tournaments are so important right now. I was talking to some other players early on where it doesn’t matter where you are in the standings right now, you’re always fighting for something, and with so many little tournaments before the playoffs now, especially this kind of few tournaments at the end of the season mean a lot.”
Something else the American players are fighting for right now: Ryder Cup points. The top six Americans in qualification points as of Aug. 17 will automatically make the team, and Keegan Bradley’s six captain’s picks are such a mystery that he’s widely expected to choose himself.
Finau, at No. 21 in those standings, has work to do to prove he belongs on the team. One spot below him is a recent surprise, Chris Gotterup.
The 26-year-old Gotterup won his second PGA Tour event two weeks ago at the Genesis Scottish Open, then contended at the Open Championship on the weekend before finishing a distant third to Scottie Scheffler. Still, it boosted him to No. 27 in the Official World Golf Ranking and No. 23 in the FedEx Cup race.
“Going over (to Europe) ranked 80th or whatever I was and coming back 20-whatever, I feel like I have a different set of circumstances in front of me,” Gotterup said. “I would like to get to (the Tour Championship at) East Lake and then, obviously, see what happens from there.”
GOLF GLANCE: RACE FOR FEDEXCUP POINTS HITS TWIN CITIES
Field Level Media’s Golf Glance provides weekly news and storylines from each of the major North American golf tours.
PGA TOUR
LAST TOURNAMENT: The Open Championship (Scottie Scheffler); Barracuda Championship (Ryan Gerard)
THIS WEEK: 3M Open, Blaine, Minn., July 24-27
Course: TPC Twin Cities (Par 71, 7,431 Yards)
Purse: $8.4M (Winner: $1.512M)
Defending Champion: Jhonattan Vegas
FedEx Cup leader: Scottie Scheffler
HOW TO FOLLOW
TV: Thursday-Friday: 4-7 p.m. ET (Golf Channel); Saturday-Sunday: 1-3 p.m. (GC), 3-6 p.m. (CBS)
Streaming (ESPN+): Thursday-Friday: 8:15 a.m.-7 p.m. ET; Saturday-Sunday: 8 a.m.-6 p.m.
X: @3MOpen
NOTES: Only two events remain in the regular season, with the top 70 players in the FedExCup standings qualifying for the first leg. Notable names on the bubble in this week’s field include Rickie Fowler (No. 63), Gary Woodland (No. 78) and Adam Scott (No. 85) … TPC Twin Cities, which Arnold Palmer designed, will play host to the event for the seventh consecutive year. … Thirty-seven players in the field also competed in The Open Championship last week, led by Chris Gotterup (3rd), Haotong Li (T4) and Wyndham Clark (T4). Li’s finish earned him a spot in the 3M Open, where he will make his event debut. … Vegas is seeking to become the first player to defend at the event successfully. … Ole Miss senior Michael La Sasso, who won the 2025 NCAA Division I individual national championship, will make his first start on tour this season as a sponsor exemption. Meanwhile, former Oklahoma State star Preston Sout will make his PGA Tour debut. … Lee Hodges holds the tournament scoring record of 260 set in 2023.
BEST BETS: Chris Gotterup (+1800 at DraftKings) followed up his Scottish Open victory with a T3 at Royal Portrush to jump to No. 27 in the world rankings. … Sam Burns (+1800) is among the most accomplished players in the field with five career tour victories. He nearly claimed a sixth, finishing second at the Canadian Open and holding the 54-hole lead at the U.S. Open … Maverick McNealy (+2000) is the highest-ranked player in the field at No. 18. While he has yet to win on tour, he does have six top-10s this season and tied for third here in 2024. … Wyndham Clark (+2500) carded a final round 65 to tie for fourth at The Open. … Taylor Pendrith (+3000) has one PGA Tour title under his belt and finished fifth here last year.
NEXT TOURNAMENT: Wyndham Championship, Greensboro, N.C., July 31-Aug. 3
LPGA TOUR
LAST TOURNAMENT: Evian Championship (Grace Kim)
THIS WEEK: Women’s Scottish Open, Gailes, Ayrshire, Scotland, July 24-27
Course: Dundonald Links (Par 72)
Purse: $2M (Winner: $300,000)
Defending Champion: Lauren Coughlin
Race to the CME Globe leader: Jeeno Thitikul
HOW TO FOLLOW
TV: Thursday-Friday: 4:30-8:30 a.m. ET (Golf Channel); Saturday: 8 a.m.-Noon (NBC Digital); Sunday: 7-11 a.m. (NBC Digital)
Streaming: NBC Sports App
X: @Womens_Scottish
NOTES: The event dates back to 1986 and has been co-sanctioned between the LPGA Tour and the LET starting in 2017. … The 144-player field includes World No. 1 Nelly Korda, No. 5 Minjee Lee and England’s Lottie Woad. Woad will be making her professional debut after securing the final point she needed through the LPGA Elite Amateur Pathway at the Evian Championship. … Scotland’s Hannah Darling will also make her professional debut as a sponsor exemption. … Charley Hull is in the field after withdrawing from the Evian Championship due to an illness that saw her collapse on the tee box.
NEXT TOURNAMENT: AIG Women’s Open, Porthcawl, Mid Glamorgan, Wales
LIV GOLF LEAGUE
LAST TOURNAMENT: LIV Golf Andalucia (Individual: Talor Gooch; Team: Legion XIII)
THIS WEEK: LIV Golf UK, United Kingdom, July 26-28
Course: JCB Golf & Country Club (Par 71, 7,276 Yards)
Purse: Individual $20M (Winner: $4M); Team: $5M (Winners: $3M)
Defending Champions: Individual: Jon Rahm; Team: Legion XIII
Season Leaders: Individual: Joaquin Niemann; Team: Crushers GC
HOW TO FOLLOW
TV/Streaming: Friday-Sunday: 8:05 a.m. ET (FOX, LIV Golf Plus)
X: @livgolf_league
NOTES: This is the 11th of 13 events on the 2025 schedule, which will be followed by the Team Championship. … LIV returns to the UK for the fourth consecutive year, with the JCB Golf and Country Club playing host to its second event. Six players in the field hail from England … The field consists of 13 four-player teams competing in daily shotgun starts over 54 holes. Each team’s top three scores are counted for each round. … Niemann is the only player with multiple individual titles this season, having won four of the first 10 events, and leads the all-time LIV list with six. … Legion XIII has won seven of its first 20 tournaments and has reached the podium five other times.
NEXT TOURNAMENT: LIV Golf Chicago, Aug. 8-10
PGA TOUR CHAMPIONS
LAST TOURNAMENT: Dick’s Open (Steve Allen)
THIS WEEK: ISPS Handa Senior Open, Berkshire, England, July 24-27
Course: Sunningdale GC (Par 70, 6,682 Yards)
Purse: $TBD
Defending Champion: K.J. Choi
Charles Schwab Cup leader: Miguel Angel Jimenez
HOW TO FOLLOW
TV: Thursday-Friday: 8:30 a.m.-2 p.m. ET (Golf Channel); Saturday-Sunday: 8:30 a.m.-Noon (GC), Noon-2 p.m. (NBC)
X: @euLegendsTour
NOTES: This is the final major of the season, with the event returning to Sunningdale for the first time since 2021 when Wales’ Stephen Dodd won. … Jimenez leads the tour with four victories this year, including his second career major title. … The 144-player field includes seven World Golf Hall of Fame members, including four-time champion Bernhard Langer and two-time Open champions Ernie Els and Padraig Harrington.
NEXT TOURNAMENT: Boeing Classic, Snoqualmie, Wash., Aug. 8-10
