Late Sunday evening, a dozen LIV golfers began their commute from South Florida to Augusta, Georgia, to play in this week’s Masters Tournament.
Compared to other major championships, 12 is a great number. It’s a reminder that LIV is filled with former Masters champions who can play in that tournament virtually as long as they’d like. But 12 is also indicative of a less-positive element of LIV: It’s the lowest number of participants since the league launched in 2022.
The 2023 Masters featured 18 LIV players, many of which were still clinging to relevancy in the Official World Golf Ranking, which is the primary way through with players qualify. But the OWGR has never awarded ranking points to LIV Golf tournaments, keeping LIV players from maintaining position for invites. Over time, LIV players have seen their world ranking depreciate slowly, pushing them outside the threshold for Masters invites. All of which meant that, by 2024, only 13 LIV players had been invited.
This week, there will be 12, which means there are many players — some of whom are highly ranked by DataGolf, the industry-leading analytics site — on the outside of Magnolia Lane looking in. Below is a list of players who won’t be at Augusta National this week.
1. Marc Leishman
Sunday’s LIV Golf Miami winner received plenty of money for his victory, but no Masters invite to go with it.
2. Dean Burmester
The man ranked fifth in LIV’s season standings — behind only Joaquin Niemann, Sergio Garcia and Jon Rahm — will not be playing this week.
3. Talor Gooch
Gooch has played in two Masters, thanks his success on the PGA Tour in 2021, but without a major championship victory to his name, his Augusta invite is nonexistent.
4. Louis Oosthuizen
Ranked 79th in the world according to DataGolf, Oosty came as close as anyone to locking up a Masters invite for life in 2012. But his playoff defeat to Bubba Watson kept that dream from becoming reality.
5. Carlos Ortiz
Ortiz has played some great golf in the last six months, winning the International Series Macau, in addition to two top-5s on LIV. But his Official World Golf Ranking — 214th — is much too low for consideration.
6. David Puig
The 23-year-old Spaniard is, like Ortiz, ranked in DataGolf’s top 50, and he even competed in non-LIV events throughout 2024 to earn a spot in the Olympics. But his world rank of 98th has him about 30 spots shy of earning a Masters invite.
7. Numerous others!
The following players are all ranked in the top 100 by DataGolf, but did not receive invites: Lucas Herbert, Paul Casey, Sebastian Munoz, Abe Ancer, Tom McKibbon, Cameron Tringale, Peter Uihlein.
