By:
Josh Berhow
December 20, 2022
Augusta Nationwide Golf Membership launched an announcement addressing LIV golfers, saying any participant who has certified for its occasion is not going to be banned.
Getty Photographs
The 2023 Masters will welcome each golfer who has certified — no matter what tour they play on.
In an announcement from Augusta Nationwide Golf Membership chairman Fred Ridley on Tuesday morning, the membership paved the best way for golfers from each the PGA Tour and LIV Golf to earn entry into subsequent April’s match. Whereas Ridley didn’t go so far as to call the upstart tour explicitly in his assertion, he famous Augusta Nationwide will invite “these eligible beneath our present standards to compete within the 2023 Masters Event” — successfully ruling out a LIV Golf Masters ban.
“Regrettably, latest actions have divided males’s skilled golf by diminishing the virtues of the sport and the significant legacies of those that constructed it,” the assertion mentioned. “Though we’re disillusioned in these developments, our focus is to honor the custom of bringing collectively a preeminent area of golfers this coming April.”
LIV Golf accomplished its first season in 2022; an eight-event collection that resulted in late October at Trump Nationwide Doral. Fourteen occasions are on the schedule for 2023.
Though it’s been a preferred subject within the golf world for a lot of the final yr, none of golf’s 4 majors — that are all run by totally different organizations — have banned LIV gamers from competing. PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, nevertheless, has banned LIV gamers from the PGA Tour and from competing in its marquee occasion, the Gamers Championship.
“A few of these (LIV) gamers could not ever get an opportunity to play in main championships. That may be a risk,” mentioned Tiger Woods, one of many PGA Tour’s greatest backers, talking on the 2022 Open Championship. “We don’t know that for certain but. It’s as much as all the main championship our bodies to make that willpower. However that could be a risk, that some gamers won’t ever, ever get an opportunity to play in a serious championship, by no means get an opportunity to expertise this proper right here, stroll down the fairways at Augusta Nationwide.”
LIV Golf’s 2023 schedule: Right here’s what we all know to this point
By:
Jack Hirsh
LIV golfers at the moment eligible for a 2023 Masters invite embrace Abraham Ancer, Bryson DeChambeau, Talor Gooch and Brooks Koepka, in addition to LIV golfers who’ve received the Masters: Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia, Bubba Watson and Patrick Reed. Mickelson determined to skip the 2022 Masters, which was throughout a stretch when he introduced he’d take a while away from the sport. Invites for the 2023 match are anticipated to exit later this week.
“As we’ve mentioned prior to now, we have a look at each facet of the Event every year, and any modifications or adjustments to invitation standards for future Tournaments will probably be introduced in April,” the assertion continued. “Now we have reached a seminal level within the historical past of our sport. At Augusta Nationwide, we’ve religion that golf, which has overcome many challenges by the years, will endure once more.”
The announcement places to mattress hypothesis that Augusta Nationwide would implement a ban on LIV golfers on the Masters, an unprecedented transfer potential primarily by the match’s invitational standing. The three organizations answerable for golf’s different main championships — the PGA of America, R&A and USGA — haven’t but made remaining selections about participant eligibility for 2023, however would appear to face greater logistical and authorized hurdles than the Masters in withholding LIV rivals from play.
One concern that also stands in the best way for LIV gamers, nevertheless, is World Rating factors. LIV has continued to attend on its software for accreditation, and people factors are essential for its golfers to enhance their world rank and earn invitations to golf’s main championships.
The 2023 Masters is April 6-9, 2023, in Augusta, Ga.
Josh Berhow
Golf.com Editor
Josh Berhow is the managing editor at GOLF.com. The Minnesota native graduated with a journalism diploma from Minnesota State College in Mankato. You may attain him at [email protected].