What Should The Four Majors Do About LIV Players?
Now that they’ve left the PGA Tour, LIV players really may have no status to get into events like the Masters, PGA, US Open, and British Open. And maybe the place where they are playing golf isn’t high caliber enough to afford them an invitation in the future.
There are ways some may qualify to get to the four coveted tournaments, but it won’t be easy. It’s not going to be automatic anymore, except for certain past champs. And that could create some uncomfortable, but not impossible, situations.
Each event, the Masters, PGA, US Open, and British Open, has different rules and regulations for entrants or invitees although each allows champions from the other’s tournament for a period of five years.
Winning a PGA Tour event or winning certain other events selected by the tournament will allow them to compete, but the LIV players have eliminated the easiest way for them to enter all four of these tournaments, which was to play well on the PGA Tour.
The Masters allows those in the top 50 of the world rankings to play. The U.S. Open allows top 60. And that’s why LIV golf applied for world ranking points. However, as Dave Shedloski pointed out on The Golf Show 2.0, there are problems for LIV in getting any points, starting with the fact that their events are just 54 holes.
The World Golf Ranking requires 72-hole events. The 54-hole events, according to Shedloski, are only at the developmental tour level, which he noted is below Korn Ferry or Challenge Tour.
The size of the field also matters for rankings. It has to have an average of 78 players, and LIV golf has just 48. There have to be Monday qualifiers, a Q-School, and so on. So right now, you can see why they are point-challenged.
That’s not to say LIV won’t make changes. But it takes time to do that, and even if they do make modifications, according to Shedloski, there’s a probationary period of a couple years.
By the time all that happens, the players on the LIV circuit will have dropped most if not all the ranking points that they currently have. There’s no way they will be in the top 50 or 60.
For the U.S. Open, they could go through the qualifying process and play that way, but most of these guys won’t do that.
The PGA Championship has different criteria, mainly the top 70 on the PGA Tour money list, and since the LIV players have left the PGA Tour, they are not on the PGA Tour money list for the season.
Like the U.S. Open and the Masters, the PGA allows current and past champs of their event for five years. And they do allow Ryder Cup team members from the previous matches to play.
There are some special spots for PGA members, but not for LIV.
The British Open has its own set of rules. They also have qualifying in about a dozen countries around the world and qualifying available for top-three finishes in certain tournaments around the world.
They allow past champs to play until they are 60. They invite the top 50 in the world rankings. The FedEx Cup top 30 and Race to Dubai top 30 are included, and there are some additional invitees.
But the bottom line is that a golfer has to get onto their money list, win or finish top-three in their qualifiers, or get in on ranking points. Should the DP World Tour exclude them from playing in the future, then their avenues diminish further.
So, what should the Masters, US Open, PGA, and British Open do next season when it comes time for them to face the LIV-ers? Really, they can handle the whole thing with tee time choices. They can put past champions who have defected to LIV with older past champions that we only see on television when they make a final putt, and let the World Golf Rankings and money list do the rest.
The Masters and the PGA can ask CBS not to show certain golfers, thereby making them less important because they are not seen by the television audience. The USGA and R&A can make the same request to NBC.
The event belongs to each organization and the organization can control, to some extent, these kinds of things.
Tournaments can give them the earliest tee times available for players in their position each day or the very last. The players might not like it, but if they have a problem, they only need to look in the mirror and remember that they brought it on themselves.
For instance, at the Masters, a grouping of Bubba Watson, Phil Mickelson, and Patrick Reed at 8:00 AM both days would be a solution. Other tournaments could do similar things.
It’s like putting the kids at a separate table at Thanksgiving. In this case, don’t stop them from playing, but just put them out of sight and out of mind. They’ll get the picture, and so will everyone else.
After another year, the falling rankings and the lack of victories on recognized tours will reduce this whole situation to a small handful of golfers who were major champs before they decided everybody else wasn’t good enough for them. LIV will almost be a non-issue.
Whether they are invited to the Masters’ past champions dinner is up to the club, just as invitations to past champs dinners for the British Open are decided by the R&A. Remember, Phil Mickelson was uninvited to the past champions dinner at the Masters this year. It might happen again.