Lee Westwood has become the latest LIV Golf star to criticise the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) as 'obsolete', after falling to a career-low 875th place. The former world number one, who joined the Saudi-backed circuit in 2022, now risks dropping outside the top 1,000 in the coming months.
Westwood told Australian Golf Digest: 'The Official World Golf Ranking has got itself into a real hole. It’s got itself to a point where it’s obsolete, really, if I’m being completely honest. It’s managed to be so stubborn that it no longer ranks all the best golfers in the world fairly. And it’s gone so far that I don’t see how it can come back from the hole that it’s in because you can’t backdate them.'
Fellow LIV player Louis Oosthuizen echoed the sentiment, saying the entire system needs a complete overhaul. The South African, who will miss his first Masters since 2008 due to his ranking drop, told Gulf News: 'If they don’t want to give us World Ranking points on LIV Golf then they should change the system where they give spots to Majors on each tour around the world or something like that.'
Joaquin Niemann, another LIV golfer, has also been vocal about the rankings. The Chilean, who received a special exemption to this year's Masters, has been forced to play on other tours to earn ranking points. He labelled the current system 'unfair' in January.
