A lack of world ranking points continues to plague LIV Golf players in terms of access to majors, and Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley said the league's format is the problem.
Chairman Fred Ridley announced no new qualification criteria for the 2025 tournament—the Wednesday news conference is typically where such revelations are made—and pointed to Augusta National ’s own ability to offer invitations as a way to get players into the field who are not otherwise invited.
“Those concerns were expressed by the OWGR, but I don't think that that prevents us from giving subjective consideration based on talent, based on performance to those players. The majority of the field is comprised of players who were top 50 in the OWGR at the end of 2023 and again two weeks ago along with PGA Tour winners since the last Masters and the top 30 in the final FedEx Cup standings.this year as well, including Joaquin Niemann, who has won two events this year on LIV Golf but also captured last fall’s Australian Open.
“Dustin Johnson, Sergio Garcia, of course they should be in the ranking,” Dawson said of LIV players and past Masters champions who have seen their OWGR place plummet. “We need to find a way to get that done. I hope that LIV can find a solution—not so much their format; that can be dealt with through a mathematical formula—but the qualification and relegation.”
The OWGR has been criticized as not reflecting the pro game accurately when players such as DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson and others are well down the list. Same for Talor Gooch, who won three LIV Golf tournaments last year but has fallen outside of the top 400 in the world. He played in three of the four majors last year.
Masters Augusta National Fred Ridley
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