The 2025 men’s professional golf season is set up to be a busy one for the PGA of America. Pulling double duty with its annual major, the PGA Championship, in addition to an American-based Ryder Cup, the PGA of America is tasked with hosting not one but two world-class men’s events in just over four months.
Not only is the organization responsible for setting up the golf courses, it is also tasked with deciding which players receive invitations. While Ryder Cup rosters are determined by each team’s respective captain, the PGA of America reserves the right to invite additional players not included in other eligibility categories to the PGA Championship.
Traditionally, this has meant inviting those players inside the top 100 of the Official World Golf Rankings not otherwise exempt the week before the championship. Kerry Haigh, chief champions officer for the PGA of America, recently detailed the process for CBS Sports, including the manner in which members of LIV Golf receive invitations.
“Our eligibility criteria is already announced [and] that will not change, but the great thing about our criteria is it allows us to have a lot of invitations to the championship,” Haigh said. “Because of that, the last three years we have had the top five players from the LIV money list play in the championship, which is something that we are proud of. We feel they are obviously really good players, some of the best players in the world, which is why we invite them, have invited them to play in the championship along with those who are exempt through other means, winning major championships and what have you.
“It’s not just the LIV tour, but we look at the International Federation Ranking List from the [Official] World Golf Rankings — and that lists Australia, Sunshine Tour, Japan, South Africa — and look at those lists and invite the leaders of those respective money lists to play in the championship. That is how we are able to get a truly international field that includes the best players in the world. We pride ourselves in having that and having that ability to invite those players to hopefully making the championship [one] you have to beat the best in the world to win a major championship.”
Over the last few days, Joaquin Niemann and Sergio Garcia of LIV Golf, both among the top five on the money list, were invited by the PGA to play in its championship.
In 2024, the PGA invited seven players (not otherwise exempt) from LIV. Some were already ranked inside the top 100 of the OWGR (Niemann, Patrick Reed, Dean Burmester, Lucas Herbert, Adrian Meronk), but others were not.
A young talent such as David Puig ranked No. 106 in the OWGR at the time but had been rolling through the Asian Tour with a couple victories to his name. Puig made it a point to play on the Asian Tour, but Talor Gooch kept his playing schedule only to LIV Golf.
The then 31-year-old won three times on LIV Golf in 2023 with victories in Australia, Singapore and Spain. He fell in a playoff to Brooks Koepka at LIV Golf Jeddah but did enough to wrap up the season-long individual championship. Despite his run of form in 2023, Gooch was not qualified for any major championships heading into 2024.
That is until the PGA of America extended Gooch an invitation into the 2024 PGA Championship. Gooch’s inclusion in the field showed the organization was looking at LIV Golf results and LIV Golf results only when trying to fill its field with players from the circuit, which falls in lines with Haigh’s comments on adding the top five from the league’s money list.
In 2023, that list was topped by Gooch and rounded out by Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Cameron Smith and Bryson DeChambeau — all of whom were already qualified for the championship. In 2024, Jon Rahm wore the crown with the top five consisting of Niemann, Garcia, Koepka and Tyrrell Hatton.
As it stands, four of those players are qualified for the championship with Niemann (No. 72 in OWGR) receiving an invite and Garcia relying on his money-list standing.
Read the full article here
