The big news out of last week’s Alfred Dunhill Links Championship was that PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan and Rory McIlroy all made nice and played golf together. But Sunday at St. Andrews saw some other big news too: one of the most significant non-major wins by a LIV Golf pro.
Tyrrell Hatton shot a final-round 70 at the Old Course at St. Andrews to win the Alfred Dunhill Links for the third time but, crucially, the first time as a member of LIV Golf.
Hatton began the 2024 season on the PGA Tour, teeing it up at the Sentry and the Sony Open in Hawaii in January. But on Jan. 31, LIV Golf announced that the English veteran was among four pros joining the upstart league funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
Rory McIlroy doubtful of pro golf merger in ‘foreseeable future’
With LIV Golf events not awarding Official World Golf Ranking points, Hatton has seen his ranking plummet since that fateful day. When he left the PGA Tour to join LIV he was ranked 15th in the world, just a few spots from his peak at 12th.
By the time he teed it up in the first round at the Alfred Dunhill Links last Thursday, he had fallen to No. 38.
But the field at the Dunhill Links — which is an annual pro-am played at St. Andrews’ Old Course, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns — is no joke. In fact, it was one of the strongest non-major fields found on the DP World Tour all year. In addition to Hatton, it featured World No. 3 Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood, Shane Lowry, Billy Horschel and Robert MacIntyre, along with LIV stars Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka, Patrick Reed and Louis Oosthuizen.
With the win, Hatton made a massive leap in the World Ranking, all the way up to No. 20, nearly making up all the ground he’d lost playing on LIV in 2024. One of the reasons that’s important is that all four major championships have qualifications based on OWGR ranking.
The Masters and Open Championship accept the top 50 in the OWGR, the U.S. Open exempts the top 60 and the PGA Championship often offers special invites to anyone inside the top 100.
Hatton is already qualified for the Masters via his T9 finish at Augusta National in 2024. But to make it into the Open and the U.S. Open via World Ranking, he’ll have to stay within the top 60 and top 50, respectively, by each tournament’s cutoff dates next year.
That will now be a lot easier thanks to the jump to No. 20 he made last weekend at the Old Course.
The other important item on top of Hatton’s mind at the Dunhill Links was playing his way onto the European Ryder Cup team. The auto-qualifiers for the European team are determined by a points system largely based on DP World Tour performance and World Ranking.
Hatton moved to 5th in the European Ryder Cup standings as a result of his win. It also earned him spots in the upcoming Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship and the DP World Tour Championship, both scheduled for November.
Those starts will give Hatton two more opportunities to improve his position in the OWGR and the European Ryder Cup standings, as he noted on Sunday after his win.
‘Sour taste’: Ex-LIV pro calls out Jon Rahm’s loophole back to DP World Tour, Ryder Cup
“It feels amazing. My last win was Abu Dhabi ’21 on the DP World Tour. So that was a long time ago. And I knew when I came back to play the British Masters and the Spanish Open last week, that I really wanted to earn enough points to be able to play in Abu Dhabi and Dubai from a World Ranking points perspective, a Ryder Cup points perspective,” Hatton said. “I’ve been fortunate to play the DP World Tour Championship every year that I’ve had my tour card. Winning today secures my spot there. I’m really excited that I can compete in those two events at the back end of the year.”
Making the accomplishment even more special was that Hatton played the Dunhill Links alongside his dad, and it ended up being the first-ever tournament win his dad witnessed in person.
“This is the third time we’ve been able to play this tournament together, and I think finally this year, my dad sort of settled down and he actually played some good golf. He played unreal yesterday, which was nice to see,” Hatton said Sunday. “I know that it made it more special if we were able to win the team event, as well, but ultimately these are memories that neither of us will ever forget, and for me to win today the individual event, that’s the first time that I’ve won with my dad at a tournament. That makes it more special, and it was pretty cool that he had a front row seat for it.”
