LIV Golf's Brooks Koepka Guaranteed To Fall Out Of World's Top 50

Brooks Koepka will end 2022 outside the world’s top 50 for the first time since 2014.

The LIV Golf player is guaranteed his fate following Pole Adrian Meronk’s win in last week’s Australian Open. Koepka is currently World No.48, having seen his ranking plummet from a respectable World No.19 when he first teed it up in LIV Golf's Portland, Oregon tournament in June. However, since then, he has played in just one ranking event - July's Open at St Andrews, where he missed the cut. 

Video: Things You Didn't Know About Brooks Koepka

LIV Golf is embroiled in a battle to acquire Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) points. However, despite numerous attempts to convince the OWGR to grant the all-important points, including forming a strategic alliance with the developmental MENA Tour, it has not yet achieved its aim.

That has led to LIV Golf players slipping down the OWGR given their limited options for playing ranking events elsewhere. In Koepka’s case, that is particularly apparent as he remains suspended by the PGA Tour and gave up his DP World Tour membership (then named the European Tour) in 2015. The fall is also dramatic in the 32-year-old's case as he was World No.1 as recently as February 2020 - a position he has held for 47 weeks over his career.

That ascent was partly down to Koepka’s four Major victories. He won the US Open in 2017 and 2018 and the PGA Championship in 2018 and 2019. Thanks to those wins, he doesn’t face the imminent threat of exclusion from the Majors, and has exemptions to all four next year. Nevertheless, it highlights why LIV Golf is keen to address the OWGR points issue sooner rather than later, as it harbours ambitions of recruiting more of the world’s best players and establishing itself at the top of the game.

Koepka isn't the only LIV Golf player to suffer the fate in recent months. In September, 2018 Masters champion Patrick Reed also slipped out of the world's top 50 for the first time since 2014, and he is currently languishing at World No.67. Louis Oosthuizen, who had also been in the top 50 since 2014, fell to World No.51 earlier in the week. 

In the South African's case, he has a chance to regain a place in the top 50 in this week's Alfred Dunhill Championship on the DP World Tour - something he'll be keen to achieve as doing so could determine his eligibility for next year's Masters at Augusta National.

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