This year’s Masters will see 12 LIV Golfers in the field, but that number is one down from last year and six from the 2023 edition, when players representing the circuit competed at the Augusta National Major for the first time.
Like other Majors, that is largely down to the diminishing number of options for the players to earn their places in the field, given LIV Golf’s inability to offer world ranking points.
Two of the Majors, the US Open and The Open, have partially addressed the problem in recent months, creating narrow pathways for LIV Golfers to qualify via their performances on the League. However, chairman Fred Ridley wouldn’t commit to a similar idea for The Masters when asked about it in his press conference ahead of the 2025 edition.
Instead, Ridley cited the example of LIV Golfer Joaquin Niemann, who has received a special invitation for the last two years, as a way Augusta National has ensured more participation from the circuit. He said: “We are an invitational tournament. We have historically considered special cases for invitations for international players, which is how Joaquin Niemann was invited, or why he was invited, the last couple years.
“We feel we can deal with that issue, whether it's a LIV player or a player on some other tour that might not otherwise be eligible for an invitation, that we can handle that with a special invitation.”
Ridley is also aware that some PGA Tour events, particularly during the FedEx Cup Fall section of the season, have had weaker fields since LIV Golf’s inception. Unlike LIV Golf, there are pathways to The Masters for success on the PGA Tour, including winning an event, but Ridley hinted that changes to qualifying routes from the PGA Tour could be forthcoming.
“We think it's important to win a PGA Tour tournament, and we have for many years recognized that by granting an invitation to the winner of each tournament,” he said.
“But like we do every year, and I've said this, I think every year in this press conference, we will have a thorough examination of our qualifications at the end of the year, or after the tournament this year, and we may make some changes. Not necessarily that, but some years we do make changes, some years we don't.”
Ridley was also asked whether the winner of the DP World Tour’s flagship event, the BMW PGA Championship, should receive an invite. He added: “I think your comment about a couple of international tournaments is well-founded, and that will be part of our examination.”
It is now almost two years since it was announced the PGA Tour and the Saudi Public Investment Fund behind LIV Golf were trying to thrash out a deal to reunite the men’s game. In the meantime, players from the two sides have only come together for the four Majors. Ridley doesn’t think that’s enough and encouraged cooperation so a deal could be struck.
He said: “Well, we talk about reunification all the time. And when I think about reunification, I think about the issue that you've just raised, and that is having more players - having all of the great players of the game playing against each other more than just a few times a year.
“I'm not really in a position to say what form that should take as far as how the two organizations should come together, what legal structure that may be or what the financial aspects of that may be, but what I would do and what I am doing is just encouraging again - sometimes if you start kind of at eye level, and that is to encourage cooperation and trying to figure out a way to get something done, regardless of what the structure of it is, to where everyone can play together again.
“So I'm going to continue to be saying that and encouraging the leaders of the organizations involved to try to work together to come up with a solution. But I think we all agree that four times a year is not enough to have the great players of the game together.”
