In his first official press conference of the 2026 LIV Golf season, CEO Scott O’Neil seemed to soften his comments on the Official World Golf Ranking board’s decision to award the league points after he and several players decried the allocation last week.
Perhaps it’s because their newest recruit and tournament winner, Elvis Smylie, is in line for a Masters berth via the league’s new credentials.
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Moments before the first round Thursday at LIV Golf Adelaide, O’Neil addressed the media in Australia. It followed a topsy-turvy off-season in which LIV saw Brooks Koepka return to the PGA Tour via its new Returning Member Program and Patrick Reed later leave to focus on the DP World Tour as a pathway back to the PGA Tour, where he’s won nine times.
They were hits to LIV, but an enormous step forward came on the eve of its season opener in Saudi Arabia when the OWGR finally recognised LIV events, which have grown this year from 54 to 72 holes. The league had also made improvements to its qualification pathways.
“Yeah, we’re so grateful to be welcomed into the golf family officially,” O’Neil said. “It’s very nice, especially [because] the commissioner of the PGA Tour is on the board and [so is] the CEO of the European Tour. Arguably, those are two [who] would have a bit to lose if you have a scarcity mindset, if you will, by our being recognised publicly. What a tremendous nod to what LIV Golf has built, is building, and where it’s heading in the future.
“For us, though, World Ranking points were a nice recognition and a great step forward, and our focus is on making sure that as many of these young talented players … get the opportunity to play on the world’s biggest stage, and that’s the four majors.”
LIV’s reaction last week to the OWGR decision, however, was more animated.
In a statement, LIV wrote that “this outcome is unprecedented. Under these rules, a player finishing 11th in a LIV Golf event is treated the same as a player finishing 57th. Limiting points to only the top 10 finishers disproportionately harms players who consistently perform at a high level but finish just outside that threshold.”
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O’Neil told Al Arabiya English about the move, “It’s a bit unprecedented in that every other event [on] tours they sanction, if there are no cuts, only 15 percent of the field gets no points; in our case it’s 82 percent of field. So that didn’t feel great.”
Two-time major champion Jon Rahm, who plays on LIV, echoed O’Neil in saying that while “it’s fantastic we’re getting points,” he added, “it seems like the rules that have been in place aren’t really applied to us, with only 10 of us getting points, it doesn’t seem fair.”
LIV’s frustration with the OWGR allocation stems from the fact the OWGR used its standard classification of “small field tournaments” with a “ranking points distribution cutoff” to award points to players who finish among the top 10 and ties.
Rising Australian star Smylie won LIV Golf Riyadh and, after grabbing almost 23 points, he leapfrogged from 134th to 77th on the OWGR. Rahm finished second to Smylie and rose from 97 to 67.
Smylie, who signed for countryman Cameron Smith’s Ripper GC team, is now within striking distance of moving into the top 50 before March 30 to earn an invitation to Augusta National. There are four more LIV events, including Adelaide, before the Masters.
“Elvis was extraordinary [in Riyadh]; he’s an extraordinary young man, [and] I think [him winning in Adelaide] would be really fun,” O’Neil said.
Meanwhile, O’Neil said he was not worried about the potency of LIV 57-player fields despite losing five-time major champion Koepka and 2018 Masters champion Reed.
“Being able to have a field of 57 players and lose a couple is perfectly fine,” O’Neil said. “I have such affinity and affection for our legends of the game and the superstars, Bryson, Dustin [Johnson], Cam, Jon Rahm. It’s a pretty amazing roster of stars. I’m equally intrigued by this emerging young core of stars. I think we’re in as good a hands as we’ve ever been. Strength of field is as good as it’s ever been.”
O’Neil also revealed LIV Golf Adelaide – the league’s flagship event with more than 100,000 fans attending in 2025 – would move forward to a mid-March slot in 2027. It will also change golf courses from The Grange to nearby Kooyonga.
LIV Adelaide had occupied a mid-February date and O’Neil admitted this would “cause a ripple effect and cause some change in the schedule going forward” for the league’s 14-event calendar.
The league also announced former Ryder Cup star Anthony Kim had signed with Johnson ’s 4Aces team for the remainder of the 2026 season, improving his status from Wild Card player to a full team member.
