Augusta National chairman delivers Masters blow to LIV golfers
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Masters chairman Fred Ridley won’t be following US Open and Open’s qualification lead, but gives hope to the DP World Tour as he urges the game to reunite.
With the USGA and R&A now offering LIV golfers the opportunity to qualify for the US Open and Open Championship directly, it was inevitable that Masters chairman Fred Ridley would face questions over a potential pathway for the rebel tour’s players into the Major season opener.
Even without a direct pathway to the Masters, we’ll still see 12 of the Saudi-backed Tour’s stars tee it up at Augusta this week. 11 of those, including Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, and Bryson DeChambeau, qualify as past champions or recent Major champions, with Jaoquinn Niemann the only man outside of those criteria to be extended an invite by the committee, just as he was in 2024.
But could Augusta offer the opportunity for LIV golfers to qualify via their own performances in the limited-field events in the future? It seems unlikely, with Ridley, speaking in his annual Masters Wednesday press conference, suggesting he and his committee would stick to their current process.
“The USGA and the R&A, they certainly act independently. We respect their decisions. 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 also responded to suggestions that the Masters field is being weakened by continuing to offer direct qualification to winners of events in the fall season on the PGA Tour, while ignoring winners of DP World Tour events with stronger fields, such as the flagship BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth.
“It’s really a balance. 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.
“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 said suggestions that more European events be considered for direct access was “well-founded”, and “will be part of our examination”.
Of course, the easiest way for LIV players to gain access to the Masters would be if the game was to reunite, with the likes of Talor Gooch, Louis Oosthuizen, Adrian Meronk and Thomas Pieters then able to play in more tournaments with world ranking points and direct qualification available.
LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neill is on site this week having been extended an invite by the Masters committee, something that famously wasn’t offered to O’Neill’s predecessor, Greg Norman, in 2024. Despite that, Ridley has no plans to meet directly with O’Neill.
“Scott is here, and we’re pleased to have him as our guest,” Ridley revealed. “Although I don’t have any specific plans to meet with him, I know that we will have some discussions with him, and we’re happy that he’s here.”
PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan is also expected to attend and Ridley called upon the Tours to make progress in bringing the game and the world’s best players back together more regularly than at the four Majors.
“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,” he said.
“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.”
Agreed, Fred.
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LIV Golf CEO Scott O'Neill is at The Masters but may not like what Augusta chairman Fred Ridley had to say.
