16 LIV Tour golfers will tee it up this weekend at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, NY, the site of the 105th PGA Championship.
PGA Championship: Why LIV Tour golfers are allowed to compete at Oak Hill Country Club
16 LIV Tour golfers will tee it up this weekend at The PGA Championship despite having left the PGA Tour.
A lot of people might be wondering why LIV Tour players get to participate in the PGA Championship if they’re not on the PGA Tour anymore? What they might not know is that the PGA Tour doesn’t dictate who can and cannot play in the four majors. Each one is its own entity, and make their own rules.
LIV is the Saudi-backed circuit that has caused a lot of turmoil and division throughout golf.
Initial reports suggested that if a player left the PGA Tour for LIV, they couldn’t play in majors. That didn’t last long.
Augusta National was the first to announce they would allow LIV players to compete. The USGA followed suit alongside R&A with the PGA of America finally getting on board. When they put out their eligibility requirements, it stated “any player” who qualifies could compete.
Not all LIV guys can compete in the majors. They still have to qualify, be inside the Top 100 worldwide, or have some kind of exemption. So for LIV golfers to play in the PGA Championship, they would have to be past winners of the event, have won another major in the past five years, be a winner of the Players Championship during the past three years or finish inside the top 15 of last year’s event.
However, there is still a lot of speculation on how LIV players will qualify for future majors, with them slipping down the world golf rankings. There hasn’t been a decision on whether LIV guys will continue to earn points, but for now, if they meet exemption requirements, they’ll play each of the majors this year.
18 LIV Tour golfers qualify to play in the 2023 PGA Championship, including previous champions Brooks Keopka, Phil Mickelson and Martin Kaymer.
The other LIV golfers in the field are Joaquin Niemann, Talor Gooch, Patrick Reed, Harold Varner III, Dean Burmester, Anirban Lahiri, Mito Pereira, Abraham Ancer, Brendan Steele, Cameron Smith, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Sihwan Kim and Paul Casey.
