The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
PGA Tour money makes it tough on LIV players’ Ryder Cup hopes
Players who joined Saudi-funded LIV Golf can still play in all the majors — and qualify for the Ryder Cup — now that the PGA Championship and British Open have announced only minor tweaks to existing criteria.
But the main avenue to golf’s biggest events still start with the PGA Tour, and that might become increasingly difficult for most LIV Golf players.
As for the Ryder Cup, LIV players such as Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed likely would need to win at least one major to have any chance of earning one of the six automatic spots on the U.S. team for the Sept. 28-30 matches in Italy.
The qualifying system is 1 point earned for every $1,000 won in PGA Tour events this year, with 1.5 points at the majors and double points for winning a major.
“Any PGA of America member who is a U.S.born player will be eligible to earn points,” Kerry Haigh, the PGA of America’s chief championships officer, said in an interview. “If the only events they get in are the majors, they would need to win one or more, or finish high in a couple of others.
“Knowing where that sixth place is will be difficult to predict,” he said. “This year has significantly different prize money.”
Haigh was alluding to 10 PGA Tour events that have a $20 million purse — at least double what they were two years ago — plus The Players Championship
at $25 million. LIV players are not eligible for any of those events because the tour has suspended them.
The four majors have not announced their prize funds yet.
Johnson currently is No. 14 in the Ryder Cup standings. He is three spots behind Keith Mitchell, who was No. 25 until he finished fifth at Riviera last week and earned $820,000 (820 points).
That’s one example of the movement available in the $20 million tournaments.
The PGA Championship on Wednesday became the last major organization to weigh in, adding one category for three players from the new International Federation Ranking list for tours in Japan, Asia, South Africa and Australia.
The top three will be determined on April 24. The current leaders include Sihwan Kim, who plays for LIV Golf, and Shaun Norris, who played an entire LIV Golf season last year
but is not part of the 48man roster this year.
The majority of the PGA Championship field comes from the PGA Tour, either through winning or the money list. Officials also rely on special invitations, a vague term that presumably relies on the world ranking. The reputation of the PGA Championship has been to have the strongest field of the four majors.
“The PGA of America also reserves the right to invite additional players ... in pursuit of our annual goal to deliver the strongest field in golf,” it said in a statement.
But even if it leans on the world ranking, that might not work in LIV’s favor.
The league has filed an application with the Official World Golf Ranking board and still has not received notice when it might get approved. Even then, ranking points would be significantly less than those for the PGA Tour because of the 48-man LIV fields and only six players currently in the top 50.