Imago
Composition of silhouette of male golf player over landscape and blue sky with copy space. sport and competition concept digitally generated image. Copyright: xx 1451962
Imago
Composition of silhouette of male golf player over landscape and blue sky with copy space. sport and competition concept digitally generated image. Copyright: xx 1451962
Hours before the 2026 season kicked off, LIV Golf pros received an outstanding update. Trevor Immelman’s team confirmed that the Saudi-based promotion will receive OWGR points right from their first event of the season in Riyadh. However, there was a catch that only the top 10 on the leaderboard were eligible for the points. And that has left Lee Westwood furious.
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The English legend tweeted, “It’s a start. But if you think 11th in a Liv event doesn’t deserve @OWGRltd points you’re more biased than I thought. It’s the young guys that have chosen Liv as the pathway for their careers that will suffer most from this decision. Still couldn’t quite manage to do their job and fairly rank the best players in the world could they?!”
LIV Golf has signed a number of young golfers over the last few years. The likes of Caleb Surratt, David Puig, and Tom McKibbin have all joined their ranks and proved themselves in the Saudi-based promotion. This year, Phil Mickelson‘s HyFlyers GC also brought in Michael La Sasso as their fourth. The NCAA champion rejected an invitation to the Masters Tournament to join LIV Golf.
Interestingly, Surratt, Puig, and McKibbin have all had quite a few finishes just outside the top-10 in 2025 alone. Combined, they have finished between the 11th and 20th position 14 times last season. If all of those finishes resulted in OWGR points, then they wouldn’t have ranked at 211th, 95th, and 77th in the world.
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Westwood’s concern may paint a picture of him supporting the youngsters. But he himself is also affected by the situation. The veteran pro also finishes outside the top-10 regularly. So the OWGR restrictions limit his opportunities to rack up points as well.
It’s a start. But if you think 11th in a Liv event doesn’t deserve @OWGRltd points you’re more biased than I thought. It’s the young guys that have chosen Liv as the pathway for their careers that will suffer most from this decision. Still couldn’t quite manage to do their job…
— Lee Westwood (@WestwoodLee) February 4, 2026
That said, Immelman & Co. could have followed the format of LIV Golf’s points distribution system as well.
LIV Golf’s points system would have helped Lee Westwood & Co. get more OWGR points
When the LIV Golf model was first introduced, they had a very specific points system designed for their complete field. That ensured that no one in the roster was missing out on earning points as long as they were playing.
The scoring system for individual standings gave the champion 200 points, runner-up 113 points, third-place pro 75, and so on. Even those who finished 57th got at least 1 point.
The OWGR could have utilized this system to its advantage to allow more than 10 players to get ranking points per event. Considering how about half the PGA Tour field in full-field events get points, they could have opted to allot at least 25 of the LIV Golf pros the same privilege as well. The percentage of the point distribution could have been set using the scoring system of LIV Golf.
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