PINEHURST, N.C. – It’s been two years since the current split in men’s professional golf. Passions have cooled, sabers have been laid down and everyone involved seems much nicer now than they did in the bomb-dropping days of 2022. As a result, golf’s powers that be are taking a more open approach to LIV Golf. players, and that could mean opening more doors for the best players on the breakaway tour.
Golf’s crown jewels are its four majors, like this week’s US Open. The most viable route to the majors is through the Official World Golf Ranking: play reasonably well for a sustained period of time and you will ascend to the upper echelons of the OWGR and receive an automatic invitation. (The US Open, for example, invites all players in the top 60.)
But since LIV tournaments do not count towards OWGR, LIV players are falling in the rankings and their main future prospects are in serious danger. For tournaments looking to bring together the best golfers, this presents a real problem.
The US Open offers the most merit-based option: playing until your entry. The “Open” in the “US Open” means that literally anyone can make their way into the tournament, as long as they survive the rigors of qualifying.
“It’s not a closed course,” Mike Whan of the USGA said Wednesday. “It doesn’t require a committee or an invitation. If you want to play on this field, you have the opportunity to play on this field and we’re proud of that.”
Four LIV players (Dean Burmester, Eugenio Chacarra, David Puig and Sergio García) qualified to enter the field. (García was an alternate who received a later invitation.) In total, 13 LIV players will compete at this year’s US Open, and nearly three dozen had the opportunity to begin their qualifying journey at the highest level.
“If they really wanted to be here, they could play 36 holes and qualify,” Whan said, “and some did, to their credit.”
The USGA, which organizes the US Open, is considering routes for deserving LIV players who do not require qualifying. Last month, the PGA Championship invited several LIV players, including 2023 singles champion Talor Gooch, and the USGA could implement a similar plan.
“We’re going to talk about it this offseason, whether or not there is a need for a pathway so that someone or some who are performing really well in LIV can have the opportunity to play that way,” Whan said. “We take it seriously.”
A key obstacle, Whan notes, is that the goals for a solution to golf’s current division continue to move forward. The PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund have missed multiple self-imposed and suggested deadlines to resolve their differences and transform their “framework agreement” into something more substantial.
“If I’m completely honest with you, we’ve always felt that for the last year and a half, maybe, we’re always three months away from understanding what the new structure is going to be,” Whan said. . “The reason we’re being more vocal about considering that for next year is that maybe this is the new world order.” In other words: If LIV Golf is here to stay, it might be time for the US Open and the other major tournaments to find a way to add their best players to their courses.
Bottom line: There is still a path to the US Open, regardless of what happens with LIV in the coming years. “You have to want to be here,” she said, “but if you want to be here, there is certainly a way to get here.”
