The announcement that the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) would resume with last week’s return of the PGA TOUR and Korn Ferry Tour effectively marked the restart for the men’s Tokyo 2020 Olympic Golf Rankings (OGR), as well.
The OWGR and Women’s World Golf Rankings (WWGR), upon which the Olympic Golf Rankings are based, were suspended in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While men’s competition has resumed in the United States, the European Tour will not return to action until July 22, while the Asian Tour and Sunshine Tour will resume later in the year. In the meantime, the IGF will monitor the men’s OGR to ensure that no athlete is significantly disadvantaged from qualification.
Following the postponement of the Tokyo2020 Olympic Games to 2021, the IGF and International Olympic Committee announced in April an adjustment to the qualifying system where athletes now will accumulate OGR points through a period ending on 21 June 2021 for the men and 28 June 2021 for the women. To date there have been 710 events for the men and 292 events for the women that have contributed to their respective rankings.
The Women’s World Golf Rankings remain paused at this time. While women’s competition has returned to the Republic of Korea, the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA), the Japan Ladies Professional Golf Association (JLPGA), the Ladies European Tour (LET) and other women’s tours worldwide are not set to resume regular competition until late July into August. The WWGR continues to monitor the resumption of other tours and will share further information on the restart of the rankings when appropriate.
In regard to qualifying, the world rankings will determine the field of 60 men and 60 women athletes in the following way: The top-15 world-ranked players will be eligible for the Olympics, with a limit of four players from a given country[ beyond the top-15, players will be eligible based on the world rankings, with a maximum of two eligible players from each country that does not already have two or more players among the top-15.
Additionally, the host country is guaranteed a spot in both competitions, as are each of the five continents of the Olympics.