Official World Golf Ranking announces two key changes for 2024

Rory McIlroy

World number two Rory McIlroy will get more bang for his buck from the Official World Golf Ranking after some significant changes to the system were announced for 2024.

The governing board of the OWGR announced points distribution updates on no-cut events and players who win multiple times in one season.

For fields consisting of 80 players or less, top finishers will receive a greater percentage of the points. Additionally, if those 80-player events do not have a cut, the bottom 15 per cent of finishers will receive no points.

This means that the bottom 12 finishers in an 80-player field with no cut will get no world ranking points, affecting the five no-cut “Signature Events” announced by the PGA Tour for 2024 and the three FedEx Cup playoff events.

Playoff series events, including the FedEx Cup playoffs and the DP World Tour Championship, will continue distributing points to the entire field.

However, events like the 20-man Hero World Challenge hosted by Tiger Woods would only be allocated points for the top 17.

Woods finished 18th this year and jumped 430 places in the rankings, but he will receive no points for an identical performance from next year.

The good news for players who win multiple events over a 52-week period, such as McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler or Jon Rahm this year, is that they will receive bonus points for such a feat.

Players who win twice in one season will receive a 60pc points bonus, while players who win three or more times will receive a 70pc increase in points.

“Based on extensive analysis following the changes implemented in August 2022, we recognised these two opportunities to further enhance the OWGR and to accurately evaluate performances of the world’s participating players on all eligible Tours,” said Peter Dawson, Official World Golf Ranking chairman.

“Adjustments to the Ranking are made after careful consideration, and we are confident that today’s updates will better position the OWGR for the future.”

The LIV Golf League has featured 54-hole no-cut events for 48 players for the past two years and remains ineligible for world ranking points.

In October, Dawson wrote to LIV Golf’s chief executive, Greg Norman and chief operating officer, Gary Davidson, to inform them that “at this time”, LIV Golf will not be recognised as an Eligible Golf Tour in the OWGR system.

Dawson said the board committee felt LIV Golf’s tournament format was an issue but added that it could be managed through an “appropriate mathematical formula”.

According to the letter, the OWGR had a problem with LIV Golf’s closed system, though that was addressed in part with the recent staging in Abu Dhabi of a 72-hole “Promotions Event” — the equivalent of a Q-School — which offered three places on LIV Golf teams next season.

The letter also revealed that LIV informed the OWGR in July that 14 players would be invited back next season regardless of their performance, more than double the number LIV officials initially told the OWGR.

“Simply put, the board committee does not believe it is equitable to thousands of players who strive every day to get starts in OWGR eligible tournaments to have a tour operate in this mostly closed fashion,” Dawson wrote.