AUGUSTA, Ga. — As pro golf’s war rages on, we arrive at Masters week with the sport’s two main tours — the PGA Tour and LIV Golf — still very much separate and with more questions than we have answers.
Sure, the players are mostly cordial toward one another, but that doesn’t help the PGA Tour and the Saudi Public Investment Fund come any closer to finalizing their merger, something that’s been in the works for 10 months now.
At this point, players are coming to a consensus: something needs to happen because with split stars and weaker fields, the game is losing.
“There needs to be a correction. I think what’s happening is not sustainable right now, so something needs to happen to try to bring it all back together so we can all move forward so we don’t have this division that’s sort of ongoing,” Rory McIlroy told Golf Monthly last week. “They keep going down those different paths and I just don’t see how that benefits anyone in the long run.”
There will be much more to discuss about pro golf’s uncertain future, both in player press conferences and from Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley, who’s scheduled to meet with the media on Wednesday.
But this week, at long last, we have the best golfers in the world teeing it up at the same time at the same tournament. Eighteen LIV players were in the Masters field last year, but this year that number is 13 (one of them, Joaquin Niemann, received a special exemption). That number shrunk year-over-year mainly due to LIV Golf’s inability to receive World Ranking points (they eventually withdrew their application), meaning anyone who didn’t qualify through other means — i.e. past major wins — lost OWGR points needed to gain entry.
Of the LIV players qualified for last year’s Masters, Harold Varner III, Talor Gooch, Abraham Ancer, Mito Pereira, Thomas Pieters, Jason Kokrak, Louis Oosthuizen and Kevin Na didn’t receive invites this year. Jon Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton and Adrian Meronk are with LIV now, but they weren’t when they played in last year’s Masters.
Although this year’s roster of 13 LIV players would do well to repeat last year’s success at Augusta. Rahm won his first green jacket in 2023, and although he was on the PGA Tour then, LIV can certainly claim him now. Phil Mickelson and Brooks Koepka — arguably the two biggest names at LIV at the time — tied for second behind Rahm. And Patrick Reed, who won the Masters in 2018, was in a three-way tie for fourth.
Below is a list of the LIV golfers playing in the 2024 Masters, including how they qualified. (Several earned spots via more than one qualification criteria.)
LIV players at the Masters (and how they qualified)
Bryson DeChambeau, U.S. Open exemption
Sergio Garcia, past champion
Tyrrell Hatton, 2023 Tour Championship qualifier
Dustin Johnson, past champion
Brooks Koepka, PGA Championship exemption
Adrian Meronk, 2023 top 50 OWGR
Phil Mickelson, past champion
Joaquin Niemann, special invitation
Jon Rahm, past champion
Patrick Reed, past champion
Charl Schwartzel, past champion
Cameron Smith, Open Championship exemption
Bubba Watson, past champion
