Lee Westwood’s tie, 34th in the Open Championship, won 3,759 spots in the official world golf rankings.
Now at No. 930, Westwood is back ahead of his son Sam, who is now ranked 2,759th. It served as an exhibition 1 for British rants against the world ranking system.
“I think it’s just proving that without world ranking points, it’s a bit of a laugh at the system,” Westwood said Wednesday ahead of this week’s LIV Golf UK event.
Comments came after the league reapplied for submission to OWGR last month. The submission is currently under review.
LIV originally applied for certification in July 2022, just after the league began, but was denied. LIV golfers can only earn ranking points by participating in major championships and international tour events.
With limited ability to accumulate points via DP World Tour and other tours, LIV players like Westwood continue to plummet OWGR. Dustin Johnson spent 135 weeks, falling to 907th, before T23, where last week’s T23 reached 571st place.
The current top 50 includes only two LIV players. No. 16 Bryson Dechambeau and No. 21 Tyrrell Hatton of Ingland.
Westwood praised Liv’s recent second submission, and believes that without winning the OWGR, the four major championships will need to change the process to include more LIV players in the future.
“I think it’s mainly related to wanting the best player in a major championship. I don’t want this conversation that a few people miss because we haven’t scored world ranking points in LIV,” he said.
“We’ll either start to score world ranking points in LIV or major championships need to modify their qualification system. Some of them look like they want to do it, but some need to have a different qualification system for LIV players.
His ability to jump over 3,000 spots based on the 34th tie in one event speaks of the core issues Westwood has with the system. The Jon Rahm issue with OWGR joining LIV in December 2023 supports a system focused on key play metrics.
“I already thought it was flawed before ever, and I was speaking out about it,” he said. “So I think the strokes have been ranked in the past few years, even in the world itself and in both data golf. I think it’s more of a reflection of people who are really playing the best because the actual points are two years’ rankings, either poor one week or poor three weeks.
“It’s crazy to be able to actually finese the system a bit by playing certain weeks and not playing certain weeks or anything like that. It’s always somewhat accurate, but probably not very often.
For now, LIV players continue to roll OWGR. Certainly, they can accumulate some points on other tours besides the LIV event, but the next major will not be until the Masters next April. Also, it will become increasingly difficult for LIV players to compete in the four biggest tournaments each year, unless they are included in the OWGR.
Liv Golf CEO Scott O’Neil said earlier this month that he hopes the approval process will progress ahead of the major 2026 season.
“I think there are a lot of people out there who want to play in the majors. If there’s a better path for us, that’s great,” Hutton said.
“There are a lot of people out there. Their current world rankings don’t really reflect the type of golfer they have. I think everyone would hope that everyone sitting here will agree to that statement.
“The more world rankings become, the more realistic I think, the better it will be for golf.”
