Masters criteria allow LIV golfers to play in 2023 tournament
The Augusta National Golf Club announced Tuesday that any golfer who has qualified for the Masters tournament based on its previous criteria will be invited to play in 2023, including 16 players currently competing in the LIV Golf League.
Six previous Masters champions are part of the group that defected from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf: bubba watson, Phil Mickelson, dustin johnson, Sergio Garcia, patrick cane Y charl schwartzel.
“Unfortunately, recent actions have divided men’s professional golf by diminishing the virtues of the game and the important legacies of those who built it,” Augusta National Golf Club President Fred Ridley said in a statement. “While we are disappointed with these developments, our goal is to honor the tradition of bringing together a pre-eminent course of golfers this coming April.
“Therefore, as invitations go out this week, we will invite those eligible based on our current criteria to compete in the 2023 Masters Tournament. As we have said in the past, we look at all aspects of the Tournament each year, and any modifications or changes to the invitation criteria for future Tournaments will be announced in April.We have reached a pivotal point in the history of our sport.At Augusta National, we have faith that golf, which has overcome many challenges throughout of the years, will last again”.
The Masters, the first major championship of the season, is scheduled to take place April 6-9 in Augusta, Georgia.
Australia cameron smiththe world number 3 player, qualifies to win the 2022 Open Championship and the Players. Bryson DeChambeau Y brooks koepka they were invited because they won the US Open or the PGA Championship in the last five years. Joaquin Niemann Y Talor Gooch are on the course after qualifying for the season-ending Tour Championship before leaving for LIV Golf and being ranked in the top 50 of the Official World Golf Ranking.
abraham ancer, Harold Varner II, jason kokrak, kevinna Y Luis Oosthuizen they are also in the OWGR top 50 and were invited. Additionally, any other player in the top 50 the week before the 2023 event would also earn an invite.
Whether Augusta National would change its criteria to make it harder for LIV golfers to compete in the Masters has been one of the game’s pressing questions during the months-long battle between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour for the best players in the world.
LIV Golf, which is led by two-time Open Championship winner greg norman and funded by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, it has attracted many of the tour’s most recognizable players with guaranteed signing bonuses worth up to $200 million, as well as the richest purses in sports history.
When Mickelson, DeChambeau and nine other LIV golfers filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour on August 3, the plaintiffs suggested that the tour colluded with the four major championships to bar LIV golfers from competing in the larger events. important in sport. In the lawsuit, lawyers for the LIV golfers accused Ridley of working behind the scenes for the PGA Tour.
The complaint says Augusta National representatives “threatened to disinvite players from The Masters if they joined LIV Golf.” He alleged that Ridley “personally instructed” players in this year’s tournament not to defect to LIV Golf and that he refused to sit down with Norman to discuss the business model for the new circuit.
Mickelson, a three-time Masters champion, did not compete in this year’s tournament after he came under fire for comments about the PGA Tour’s “odious greed” and the Saudi monarchy’s history of human rights violations. At the Masters, Ridley said that Mickelson had not been uninvited to play.