Augusta National Golf Club announced Tuesday that golfers who qualified for the Masters Tournament under previous criteria will be invited to play in 2023, including the 16 players currently competing in the LIV Golf League. .
The six past Masters champions are part of a group that moved from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf. Bubba Watson, Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Sergio Garcia, Patrick Reed and Charles Schwartzel.
Fred Ridley, president of Augusta National Golf Club, said in a statement: “Unfortunately, recent actions are dividing professional men’s golf and undermining the virtues of the game and the meaningful legacy of those who built it.” While we are disappointed by these developments, our focus is to honor our tradition of bringing together a field of outstanding golfers this April.
“Therefore, invitations will be sent out this week to invite those who are eligible under current criteria to the 2023 Masters tournament. Changes to the invitation criteria for upcoming tournaments, if any, will be announced in April.We have reached an important point in the history of this sport.Augusta National has seen many over the years. I believe that golf, which has overcome the challenges of the past, will continue again.”
The first major championship of the season, the Masters, will take place April 6-9 in Augusta, Georgia.
Australia’s Cameron Smith, ranked No. 3 in the world, will qualify for the 2022 British Open and Players titles. Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka were invited because they have won US Open or PGA Championships in the last five years. After qualifying for the season-ending Tour Championship, Joaquin Niemann and Talla Gooch are on the field for LIV Golf and a place in the top 50 of the Official World Golf Rankings.
Abraham Ancer, Harold Varner III, Jason Kokrak, Kevin Na and Louis Oosthuizen were also included in the OWGR Top 50 and invited. Other players who finished in the top 50 in the week before the 2023 event will also earn invitations.
Whether Augusta National will change the criteria to make it more difficult for LIV golfers to qualify for the Masters remains to be seen in the game’s multi-month battle between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour for the world’s best player. It was one of the pressing issues.
LIV Golf, fronted by two-time Open Championship winner Greg Norman and funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, reportedly has guaranteed contract bonuses worth as much as $200 million. and the richest wallet in sports history.
When Mickelson, DeChambeau, and nine other LIV golfers filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour on August 3, plaintiffs allege that the Tour colluded with four major championships to banned from participating in the sport’s most important events. In the lawsuit, the LIV golfer’s attorney accused Ridley of working behind the scenes on his PGA Tour.
According to the complaint, representatives of Augusta National were “threatened to withdraw their invitation to the Masters if the player participated in LIV Golf.” Ridley claimed to have “personally instructed” players not to move to LIV Golf at this year’s tournament and refused to discuss the new circuit’s business model with Norman.
Mickelson, a three-time Masters champion, did not compete in this year’s tournament after being heavily criticized for his comments about the PGA Tour’s “disgusting greed” and the Saudi royal family’s history of human rights violations.At the Masters, Ridley said Mickelson had never been revoked.
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