A golfer from LIV moves back into the top 50 in the world.
Since LIV Golf can’t give its players world ranking points, a lot of attention has been paid to the plight of players whose rankings have gone down since they decided to play on the big-money circuit.
Some of its biggest names, like Patrick Reed and Dustin Johnson, have dropped out of the top 50, and the winner of LIV Golf Mayakoba, Charles Howell III, fell another 11 places over the weekend to World No. 312. This is a drop of 139 places since Howell III signed with LIV Golf last July.
Even worse, Richard Bland and Sebastian Munoz fell out of the top 100. This hurts their chances of making it to the PGA Championship in May, the second Major of the year.
After the tournament at El Camaleon Golf Club, though, it wasn’t all bad news for LIV Golf players in the world rankings. Harold Varner III went into last week’s tournament as World No.51. Even though he didn’t get a single world ranking point for playing, he moved up two spots to World No.49 and is now back in the world’s top 50.
He wasn’t the only LIV player to get a boost out of the blue. Mito Pereira, who just joined the team, moved up two spots, from World No.50 to World No.48. In both cases, though, the rise is likely to be an outlier in the weeks to come, not the norm.
On the other hand, Varner III’s Range Goats GC teammate Talor Gooch has dropped one spot in the world rankings to World No. 44. He is likely to drop out of the top 50 in the next few weeks.
Whether or not Varner III, Pereira, and Gooch stay in the top 50, they will still be able to play in the Masters this year. At the end of last year, all three of them were in the top 50, so they are eligible.
Still, Varner’s move back into the elite group was a pleasant surprise after he tied for 27th place in Mexico, which was not his best performance. The hard part will be staying there, though.
