, the Official World Golf Ranking, denied LIV Golf’s request for ranking points earlier this month. LIV players like Bryson deChambeau, Phil Mickelson, and others have spoken out about the world ranking points that LIV’s top golfers deserve. They even went as far as to say that the majors should make special exemptions for LIV golfers.
The Masters will not change in 2024.
The Augusta National Chairman Fred Ridley, and R&A CEO Martin Slumbers, spoke to members of the press on Thursday, at Royal Melbourne, Australia, at the 2023 Asia-Pacific Amateur. This tournament is where the winner gets an exemption for the Masters and Open Championship.
Ridley stated that the criteria for the Masters of 2024 will not change.
Ridley stated, “If you go back in time and look at the Masters Tournament, the qualifications have been changed dozens of different times.” “We review them every year.” We do not make any changes every year but we look at the situation to see if there are any adjustments.
“As you may recall, last year there was speculation about whether we would invite LIV players. We stayed true our qualification criteria, and invited everyone who qualified. We adjust our qualifications to suit what we think is in the best interest of the tournament, which represents the best players from around the world.
Three changes were made for the Masters of 2024. They included inviting the NCAA Individual Champion, the winners of FedEx Cup fall point-awarding events and tweaking the Tour Championship Qualification.
The Masters usually invites top 50 players in the OWGR, as well as previous champions, PGA Tour winner and high finishers at other major championships.
Slumbers also said that the R&A will release its new qualification criteria early next year. Slumbers, however, said that recent discussions about exemption categories were completely off-target.
Slumbers stated, “It’s important to not lose sight of The Open’s intention to be open to everyone. You earn your place on the field through exemptions. That won’t change.”
A follow-up was asked about Talor Gooch who won the LIV Individual Championship and earned more than 35 million dollars this year. He is not eligible to play in any majors until 2024, and he does not rank among the top 200 players in the OWGR.
Ridley stated that “(LIV players) made decisions in accordance with what they believed was best for their golf career, and we respect that.” We do reserve the right, in our invitation criteria to invite international players to special exemptions, but we did grant a special exception to an amateur last year (Gordon Sargent). We are always keeping an eye on that.
We’ll do our best to serve the Masters.
Slumbers added: “From my point of view, without going into details, I think there are many opportunities for players in the world to qualify and participate in The Open Championship, irrespective of what tour they are on. And that won’t change.”
