As we approach Masters week, accessing the world rankings poses some challenges due to certain top players not earning points on the LIV tour. Previously, last year, we could simply remove the divisor to provide a reasonable estimation, given that these players still participated in approximately 25 tournaments. However, after three years of LIV, with points only accruing from majors, the DP World Tour, or other smaller tours, the rankings are suffering greatly and fail to represent the standing of LIV golfers accurately.
Nevertheless, LIV remains a prestigious tour boasting world-class talent. It is imperative longterm that a method be devised to rank these golfers, even if it entails a three-round, no-cut event. Such an approach should still be considered. LIV consistently produces winners who compete against other top golfers in the majors and they award their own champs. In essence, it is not markedly different from the Hero World Challenge, which awards approximately 30 points to its winner, and certainly superior to tournaments like the Puerto Rico Open, which only grants 20 official world golf points to its victor.
Under the previous ranking system, every PGA tournament guaranteed a minimum of 24 points to its winner, regardless of the field’s strength. The European Tour offered 20 points, and so forth.
Estimating The Value of a LIV Event
In LIV, there exists a mix of older golfers primarily invested in for their brand and name recognition, alongside some legitimate top 50 major contenders. To evaluate their performance, we’ve assigned 25 points to the winner per event, with points scaling down for subsequent finishes, mirroring the approach seen in events like the Hero tournament. This method feels equitable, aligning with the competitive landscape.
Over the past two seasons, we’ve focused on assessing the points earned by top performers on the LIV Tour who stand a chance of breaking into the top 75 rankings. We’ve omitted the 2022 data as its weight diminishes over time, and the tour’s inaugural year exhibited a weaker field.
Taylor Gooch has emerged as the standout performer in LIV in 2023 winning 3 events and demonstrating consistent excellence. Regrettably, Gooch’s inability to participate in the majors this season due to lack of exemptions is a missed opportunity, as his performance suggests he is deserving of a spot among the top 50 golfers.
Below are the total events with LIV Golf Points included.
While technically, we should reduce the LIV 2023 points by about 15%, in 2023 given that these are all estimates and the golfers are already facing a significant reduction with the divisor on the events played, we’ll consider this lack of adjustment as a slight bonus since we’ve taken a conservative approach as well. In a scenario where these golfers were being officially ranked and there was a greater incentive to maintain rankings, I believe they would be inclined to participate in more tournaments worldwide to reach the 40 events Divisor played threshold or close to it. However, attempting to calculate the exact points lost isn’t a major factor, especially considering it’s all an estimate.
The number of events played divisor greatly impacts golfers like Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Gooch, and DeChambeau as early movers to the LIV tour. For example Koepeka would be the 3rd best golfer in the world with that adjustment. He won a major last year and two events on the LIV tour as well as a 2nd place finish in the Masters. Removing the divisor would also greatly help Ludvig Aberg and Will Zalatoris who are also playing better than their rankings. Without the divisor for those golfers is likely more representative of how they have played but for our purposes we will still rank them by the book. (Tyrrell Hatton just joined the tour and his points with our without LIV are nearly identical 3.30 vs 3.25 and his ranking doesn’t change at all.)
In this estimation, LIV would have 9 golfers in the top 45, with three in the top 10. These estimations are likely conservative but would be fair, providing the top golfers with a path to world rankings. With those benefits those who do not have exemptions into the majors could still earn their way in until there is a merger.
