How these LIV golfers qualified for the 2024 Masters
LIV pros Jon Rahm (left) and Joaquin Niemann (right) earned their Masters invites in very different ways.
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The field at the 2024 Masters features a handful of players who ply their trades with LIV Golf. But how did these LIV Golf players qualify for the Masters? Here’s everything you need to know.
How LIV pros got into the Masters
In all, there are thirteen LIV Golf players who earned invites to this year’s Masters. Those players are Bryson DeChambeau, Sergio Garcia, Tyrrell Hatton, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Adrian Meronk, Phil Mickelson, Joaquin Niemann, Jon Rahm, Patrick Reed, Charl Schwartzel, Cameron Smith and Bubba Watson.
7 best LIV Golf players NOT in the 2024 Masters
Aside from earning a lifetime exemption for winning the Masters, as is the case with the majority of the 13 LIV players in the field, the easiest way to get into the Masters is by winning a PGA Tour event in the past year or getting within the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking.
That’s a problem for LIV pros because they are barred from Tour events and LIV tournaments do not award world ranking points. As a result, several top LIV pros were left out this week.
But those who qualified did so under 20 different Masters exemption categories, which are as follows:
2024 Masters exemption categories
- Previous Masters winners (lifetime);
- Winners of the five most recent U.S. Opens;
- Winners of the five most recent Open Championships;
- Winners of the five most recent PGA Championships;
- Winners of the three most recent Players Championships;
- The current Olympic gold medalist (one year);
- The current U.S. Amateur champion and runner-up (one year; must remain an amateur);
- The current Amateur champion (one year; must remain an amateur);
- The current Asia-Pacific Amateur champion (one year; must remain an amateur);
- The current Latin America Amateur champion (one year; must remain an amateur);
- The current U.S. Mid-Amateur champion (one year; must remain an amateur);
- The current NCAA DI men’s individual champion (one year; must remain an amateur);
- The first 12 players, including ties, in the previous year’s Masters;
- The first four players, including ties, in the previous year’s U.S. Open;
- The first four players, including ties, in the previous year’s Open Championship;
- The first four players, including ties, in the previous year’s PGA Championship;
- Individual winners of PGA Tour events that award a full-point allocation for the season-ending Tour Championship, from the previous Masters to the current Masters;
- Those qualifying for the previous year’s season-ending Tour Championship;
- The 50 leaders on the final Official World Golf Ranking for the previous calendar year;
- The 50 leaders on the Official World Golf Ranking published during the week prior to the current Masters Tournament.
One LIV player, Joaquin Niemann, didn’t meet any of the 20 exemption categories, but Augusta National offered him a special invitation.
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