Who Is LIV Golf's Best Player So Far? One Ranking Says It May Not Be Who You Think
Now is a good time to remind yourself that no golf ranking system is perfect. Or maybe even barely adequate. They all have serious flaws.
With that disclaimer up front, The Ranking presents its updated LIV Golf rankings, based on a year-and-a-half of LIV Golf action.
The big news is the identity of LIV Golf’s statistical No. 1 player. Take three guesses, then guess again.
Dustin Johnson? Nope.
Talor Gooch? Sorry.
Cameron Smith? No.
It is a statistical anomaly that the No. 1-ranked player in LIV Golf hasn’t won a LIV Golf tournament. He has used consistency like a sharpened weapon to sneak his way to the top, coupled with a minor ongoing slump from Johnson.
Patrick Reed is your new No. 1 LIV-er. Well, we warned you about flaws.
Related: Reed Drops 4 Spots in This Week's Sports Illustrated World Golf Rankings
Here’s how The Ranking’s proprietary LIV Golf rankings work: They are based solely on a player’s place finish, not his score. Each player gets a won-loss-tie record when he competes in LIV Golf. Last weekend in Singapore, for example, Gooch was the winner. So he beat all 47 opponents in the field and notched a 47-0-0 mark for the week. Jason Kokrak shared sixth place with Smith; their won-loss records for Singapore were 41-5-1. Got it? Good.
The Ranking counts all tournaments equally (O.K., that’s a definite flaw), which means the 2022 results carry as much weight as the more recent results in 2023. (Well, that’s the price for having only eight events last year) For added spice, since 18 LIV-ers played in the Masters, that result counted, too. The Masters carried major heft because 86 players started the tournament instead of LIV’s usual 48. A player’s won-loss record is converted to a winning percentage, counting ties as half a win.
Players must compete in five LIV Golf events to be eligible for the rankings and play at least once in 2023. You can check out the stats for all 49 eligible LIV-ers at the bottom of this column. Meanwhile, here’s a look at some of the most interesting developments in The Ranking’s LIV Golf Rankings…
Reed ‘em and weep. Yes, Reed really is No. 1. Who could make that up? It has been more than two years since Reed’s last win, the 2021 Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines. So how did he get to the top without winning? Well, he came close a lot. He has one second, three thirds and a fifth in 12 LIV events and only three finishes worse than 12th. Also, he closed strong at the Masters (remember, it had a bigger field) with a T4—that counts as 82-3-1. Reed’s .763 winning percentage currently tops LIV. At the end of 2022, his mark of .678 was good only for a distant third behind Johnson and Joaquin Niemann. His last four LIV finishes include two top 4s but it was that T4 in Augusta that put him over—and into—the top.
The Dust Belt. Dustin Johnson owned an impressive 291-29-9 mark and a winning percentage of .898 at the end of 2022. Since then, however, Dusty’s game has looked rusty (or dusty?). He finished 23rd or higher in half of this year’s events, including a costly 48th at the Masters, which was a 38-47-1 mark that dropped his average dramatically. His best finish was a seventh in Orlando and he has plummeted from a dominating No. 1 position to barely No. 2 at .741, a mere .001 ahead of his former arch-rival …
Mr. Swimsuit Model. No, nobody is calling Brooks Koepka that yet just because his wife, Jena Sims, is in the running to make the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. (But let’s go ahead and get that started.) Koepka, at .740, got a massive bump for being runner-up at the Masters. He also won the Orlando event, his second LIV title, and was third last week in Singapore. He’s been looking like the Brooksy of old all season. (Note this for PGA Championship wagering use, unless you’re a Bushwood member—there’s no gambling at Bushwood.)
Tinker, Talor, Soldier, Spy. After back-to-back LIV wins, it’s getting harder to come up with a pun on Talor Gooch’s uniquely spelled first name without looking up some antique John le Carre novel. At .731, Gooch is close enough to Reed, Johnson and Koepka to give LIV the appearance of having a semi-Fab Four and, shockingly, it doesn’t include reigning British Open champion Cameron Smith, who pleaded guilty to taking a little too much time off over the winter and having too much fun. (A heinous charge and The Ranking staff would like to sign up immediately to do likewise.) Gooch, a former Oklahoma State University star, is finally on the roll everyone thought he’d find on the PGA Tour. Well, his timing is perfect since this roll is about $5 million better than it would’ve been two years ago. And he just scored an invite for this month’s PGA Championship at Oak Hill. The roll continues …
U is for Unexpected. Nobody thought Peter Uihlein, whose credentials were shaky to even warrant a LIV Golf invite, would prove to be the current No. 5 player on the tour. Six of his last eight LIV finishes are 11th or better, including three seconds. Uihlein, another Oklahoma State alum, had been in a decade-long battle to earn preferred PGA Tour status. Instead, he racked up $11 million in winnings last year. He tied Cameron Tringale for 11th last weekend in Singapore, although if you look up Uihlein on LIV Golf’s website, it says he finished ninth (based on points awarded). Ignore that. LIV’s statkeepers are required to assign each player a different place-finish even in case of a tie, which his not only dumb but leads to errors in reports. Uihlein was 11th and he has more than vindicated his selection on this tour. If LIV had an All-Star team, he’d be in the starting lineup.
Neil deGrasse Bryson. It doesn’t take a physics genius to notice that Bryson DeChambeau has been LIV’s biggest disappointment. The former U.S. Amateur and U.S. Open champion has a best finish of only eighth in two seasons of 48-man fields and hasn’t cracked the top 15 in 2023. That’s crazy talk for a player who, two short years ago, was the main attraction on the PGA Tour with his bulked-up physique and Happy Gilmore-like drives. He doesn’t rank in the top half of LIV—OK, he’s 25th out of 49 players. That’s shocking. What did Tiger Woods used to say? “It’s a process.”
The Phil factor. Last year, observers understandably wrote off Phil Mickelson when he was near the bottom of the bucket on LIV, ranking 38th in The Ranking’s Season One final standings with a .368 percentage. That Masters runner-up finish moved him up last month and he’s playing a little better, finally. He rose to 33rd in The Ranking’s rankings and finally is within sight of the .500 mark at .482. Since the Masters, he finished 11th and 13th. He will likely be the most-watched player in the PGA Championship’s first round just because he’s Phil (and Tiger won’t be there).
Break up the Mets. This has been a dreadful season for American Sihwan Kim, 34. He finished 48th, that’s dead last, in the year’s first four tournaments. In Singapore, at least he escaped the cellar and placed 45th. So this season, his won-loss total is 3-232-0. In one word, that’s not good. (Hey, that’s two words!) (Hey, thanks for paying attention!) His overall winning percentage is a dismal .226. David Puig and Jed Morgan are the only other currently ranked LIV-ers also not hitting .300. Kim finished 48th in Boston last year so he leads LIV in all-time DFLs—slang for dead-last finishes—with five. So he’s got that going for him.
The Ranking’s LIV Golf rankings
(winning percentage through Singapore event)
1. Reed, Patrick .763
2. Johnson, Dustin .741
3. Koepka, Brooks .740
4. Gooch, Talor .731
5. Uihlein, Peter .698
6. Ortiz, Carlos .689
7. Howell, Charles .689
8. Pereira, Mito .688
9. Niemann, Joaquin .675
10. Smith, Cameron .671
11. Grace, Branden .634
12. Wolff, Matthew .630
13. Garcia, Sergio .612
14. Steele, Brendan .606
15. Casey, Paul .598
16. Tringale, Cameron .596
17. Lahiri, Anirban .578
18. Munoz, Sebastian .577
19. Varner, Harold .576
20. Burmeister, Dean .557
21. Na, Kevin .557
22. Ancer, Abraham .542
23. Oosthuizen, Louis .526
24. Lee, Danny .523
25. DeChambeau, Bryson .522
26. Kokrak, Jason .521
27. Westwood, Lee .518
28. Schwartzel, Charl .514
29. Bland, Richard .499
30. Leishman, Marc .492
31. Stenson, Henrik .485
32. Canter, Laurie .485
33. Mickelson, Phil .482
34. Horsfield, Sam .481
35. Chacarra, Eugenio .469
36. Poulter, Ian .466
37. Vincent, Scott .458
38. Perez, Pat .447
39. Jones, Matt .443
40. Pieters, Thomas .422
41. Kaymer, Martin .392
42. Koepka, Chase .364
43. McDowell, Graeme .346
44. Piot, James .345
45. Wiesberger, Bernd .327
46. Watson, Bubba .324
47. Puig, David .297
48. Morgan, Jediah .297
49. Kim, Sihwan .226