LIV Golf to get world ranking points for the first time. Only the top 10 players get them

LIV Golf received a boost on the eve of starting its fifth season when the Official World Golf Ranking approved the Saudi-funded league to receive ranking points for the first time.

The unanimous decision Tuesday by the OWGR board came with some conditions, however, that did not sit well with LIV Golf CEO Scott O'Neil.

Points will be distributed only for top-10 finishes and ties, compared with other tours that have smaller fields and leave out only the bottom finishers.

“No other competitive tour or league in OWGR history has been subjected to such a restriction," LIV said in a statement.

For its 57-player league, LIV will get points based on a “Small Field Tournament” category that also applies to tournaments like the Tour Championship and the PGA Tour's signature events that do not have a cut.

“Under these rules, a player finishing 11th in a LIV Golf event is treated the same as a player finishing 57th," the LIV statement said. “Limiting points to only the top 10 finishers disproportionately harms players who consistently perform at a high level but finish just outside that threshold, as well as emerging talent working to establish themselves on the world stage — precisely the players a fair and meritocratic ranking system is designed to recognize.”

Considering that LIV Golf has been without ranking points since the league launched in 2022, its strength of field will be lower. Tyrrell Hatton at No. 22 and two-time U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau at No. 33 are the only LIV players in the top 50, with five others among the top 100. Jon Rahm, the last player before Scottie Scheffler to be No. 1 in the world, now is at No. 97.

The decision is effective immediately as LIV Golf begins Wednesday in Saudi Arabia.

“It's a big day, and a positive day in my mind,” Trevor Immelman, a former Masters champion and OWGR chairman, said in a telephone interview. “It's been a long process, it's been exhausting in many ways, with a whole host of people from outside being involved and working around the clock to make this decision before LIV plays its first event.”

LIV's season opener in Riyadh is likely to award about 23 points to the winner, compared with nearly 47 points to Chris Gotterup when he won the Sony Open, the weakest field in the early part of the PGA Tour season. The Phoenix Open winner this week gets about 59 points.

LIV would get slightly more points than the Qatar Masters on the European tour this week.

Even so, it would be a boost for a LIV player if he gets on a roll, such as Joaquin Niemann winning five times last year and Rahm finishing in the top 10 in all but one of the 13 events.

The world ranking is important because the four majors use it to help determine fields. The U.S. Open and British Open created categories for LIV players when they weren't getting ranking points. The Masters and PGA Championship took care of worthy players through special invitations.

The board decision ends a debate that has been around almost as long as LIV. The OWGR rejected the first application in October 2023 when former chairman Peter Dawson said the board could not fairly measure LIV against the other tours.

The question was not about the quality of players, but rather how they could be ranked equitably with thousands of other players across 24 tours because LIV was perceived as having a closed shop instead of pathways and turnover.

“We fully recognized the need to rank the top men’s players in the world but at the same time had to find a way of doing so that was equitable to the thousands of other players competing on other tours that operate with established meritocratic pathways,” Immelman said in the OWGR announcement. “We believe we have found a solution that achieves these twin aims.”

Immelman, now the lead CBS Sports analyst, became OWGR chairman last year and had been in constant contact with O’Neil.

LIV has gone from 54 holes to 72 holes for 2026, though that wasn’t a big obstacle in getting world ranking points because other smaller tours around the world also have 54-hole events. Rather it was the turnover in LIV, and the self-selection of adding players with contracts.

It also expanded its field size by three to 57 players, still short of the average field size of 75 the OWGR preferred. It expanded its “relegation zone” to 11 players who get dropped and have to earn their way back through a qualifying event or the Asian Tour's International Series points list.

The board worked around those issues to make LIV Golf the 25th circuit in the OWGR.

“It's extremely important for us to be able to rank the best players in the world as accurately as possible,” Immelman said. "That has been at the top of my mind throughout this process that I've been involved in. I'm thankful to Scott for his time and effort in this.

“I dream of a world in the men's professional game where everybody is working together and fans enjoy the great golf being played all over the world. That's been my North Star since I took this role.”

The PGA Tour and European tour — commercially known as the DP World Tour — recused themselves from the OWGR decision in October when LIV's application was rejected. The full board was involved in the decision Tuesday.

LIV said it saw the decision as a “first step toward a structure that fully and fairly serves the players, the fans, and the future of the sport.”

“We entered this process in good faith and will continue to advocate for a ranking system that reflects performance over affiliation,” LIV said. “The game deserves transparency. The fans deserve credibility. And the players deserve a system that treats them equally.”

The PGA Tour said in a statement, “We respect today’s decision by the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) governing board and the considerable time the board and Chairman Immelman committed to this process.”

The OWGR said it would continue to review any changes LIV makes to its league for 2027, which would result in awarding more — or fewer — points, and whether it remains in the system.

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

FILE - Tyrrell Hatton, of Legion XIII, hits his shot from the 13th tee during the semifinals of LIV Golf Team Championship Michigan at The Cardinal at Saint John's, Saturday, August 23, 2025 in Plymouth, Mich. (Scott Taetsch/LIV Golf via AP, File)

FILE - LIV Golf CEO, Scott O'Neil laughs while playing with Brooks Koepka of Smash GC, Paul Danforth and Jordan Bazant during the pro-am before the start of LIV Golf Riyadh at Riyadh Golf Club, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (Charles Laberge/LIV Golf via AP, File)

FILE - International team captain Trevor Immelman waves toward the gallery before a foursomes match at the Presidents Cup golf tournament at the Quail Hollow Club, Sept. 22, 2022, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)

LONDON (AP) — British police Tuesday opened a criminal investigation into politician Peter Mandelson over alleged misconduct related to his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

The British government says newly released Epstein files include documents that suggest Mandelson may have shared market-sensitive information with the convicted sex offender while Mandelson was a member of the British government a decade and a half ago.

The Metropolitan Police force said detectives had reviewed reports of misconduct and decided they met the threshold for a full investigation.

Misconduct in public office carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. But opening an investigation does not mean Mandelson will be arrested, charged or convicted.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

LONDON (AP) — British politician Peter Mandelson is quitting the House of Lords as he faces new questions, and a potential police investigation, over his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The Speaker of the Lords, Michael Forsyth, said Mandelson has informed officials he will retire from Parliament’s upper chamber effective Wednesday.

The announcement came as the British government prepared legislation to eject Mandelson from the Lords and remove the noble title, Lord Mandelson, that came with his seat in the chamber. Mandelson will retain the title after he retires unless lawmakers pass legislation to strip it from him — something that has not been done for more than a century.

The government also said it had sent a file of material to police who are looking into allegations that Mandelson passed sensitive government information to the disgraced financier.

A trove of more than 3 million pages of Epstein-related documents released by the U.S. Justice Department has brought excruciating revelations about 72-year-old Mandelson, who served in senior government roles under previous Labour governments and was U.K. ambassador to Washington until Prime Minister Keir Starmer fired him in September over his ties to Epstein.

The newly released files contain emails from Mandelson to Epstein passing on nuggets of political information, some of which critics say may have broken the law. Police say they are reviewing reports of misconduct “to determine if they meet the criminal threshold for investigation.”

Starmer told his Cabinet on Tuesday that he was “appalled” by the revelations in newly released Epstein files, and was concerned there are more details still to emerge. He has ordered the civil service to conduct an “urgent” review of all of Mandelson’s contacts with Epstein while he was in government.

Starmer spokesman Tom Wells said that the government had sent police its assessment that the Mandelson-Epstein documents contained “likely market-sensitive information" about the 2008 global financial crisis and its aftermath that shouldn't have been shared outside of government.

Among the revelations in the files:

— In 2003-2004, bank documents suggest Epstein sent three payments totaling $75,000 to accounts linked to Mandelson or his partner Reinaldo Avila da Silva. Mandelson has said that he doesn't remember receiving the money and will investigate whether the documents are authentic. But he resigned from the governing Labour Party on Sunday, saying he didn’t want to cause the party “further embarrassment.”

In 2008, Epstein avoided federal prosecution by pleading guilty to state charges in Florida of soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution. He was sentenced to 18 months in jail.

Emails and text messages show that Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein continued after the financier’s sentence.

— In 2009, Epstein sent da Silva 10,000 pounds (about $13,650 at today’s rates) to pay for an osteopathy course. Mandelson told The Times of London that “in retrospect, it was clearly a lapse in our collective judgment for Reinaldo to accept this offer.”

— Also in 2009, Mandelson, then business secretary in the U.K. government, appears to have told Epstein he would lobby other members of the government to reduce a tax on bankers’ bonuses.

— The same year, Mandelson sent Epstein an internal government report discussing ways the U.K. could raise money after the 2008 global financial crisis, including by selling off government assets. Mandelson wrote: “Interesting note that’s gone to the PM.”

— In May 2010, Mandelson messaged Epstein that “sources tell me 500 b euro bailout” is almost complete. The message was dated hours before day European governments announced a 500 billion euro deal to shore up the single currency.

Epstein died by suicide in a jail cell in 2019, while awaiting trial on U.S. federal charges accusing him of sexually abusing dozens of girls.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said that Mandelson's friendship with Epstein was “a betrayal on so many levels.”

“It is a betrayal of the victims of Jeffrey Epstein that he continued that association and that friendship for so long after his conviction,” Streeting told the BBC. “It is a betrayal of not just one but two prime ministers” — Gordon Brown, the U.K. leader between 2007 and 2010, and Starmer.

An email requesting comment on the documents was sent to Mandelson through the House of Lords.

FILE - President Donald Trump, left, gets a reaction from Britian's ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson, right, as they take questions from members of the media after announcing a trade deal between U.S. and U.K. in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, May 8, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, file)

FILE - British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, right, talks with Britain's ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson during a welcome reception at the ambassador's residence on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025 in Washington. (Carl Court/Pool Photo via AP, file)

FILE - Britain's Ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson, speaks during a reception at the ambassador's residence on Feb. 26, 2025 in Washington. (Carl Court/Pool Photo via AP, File)

British Ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson speaks during the rededication ceremony of the George Washington Statue in the National Gallery in London, Wednesday, June 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)