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As nearly every major U.S. sports league looks to expand its presence abroad, the Masters wants to be more international, too.
“Golf is a global game, and I think we always want to recognize that,” Augusta National Golf Club chairman Fred Ridley said Thursday at the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship in Dubai.
The NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL have all been playing more games outside the U.S., as well as crafting new media strategies in other countries—like the NFL tapping Amazon to stream this year’s Black Friday matchup free worldwide.
While The Masters would never be played anywhere but Augusta (let alone outside the U.S.), golf’s most prestigious tournament recently changed its qualifying criteria to give more opportunities to non-American players. In August, The Masters announced winners of six national opens would earn an invite to the 2026 event; in turn, winners of the PGA Tour’s lower-tier fall tournaments would no longer qualify for Augusta.
“International competition has always been a big part of The Masters tournament,” Ridley said Thursday. “That representation internationally has grown over the years to where it’s pretty much 50-50, maybe even a few more international players. So, we thought it was appropriate to carry on that tradition and the culture that we’ve established at The Masters.” In 2025, 48 of the 95 players in The Masters field were from the U.S., while 47 were not.
The Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship is one of three international amateur events (alongside The Amateur Championship and Latin America Amateur Championship) that award the winner with a Masters invitation.
Earlier this month, two international players punched their tickets to the 2026 Masters by winning two of the six aforementioned national opens. Japanese player Naoyuki Kataoka (who was ranked No. 500 in the world at the time) won the Japan Open, and Englishman Marco Penge won the Spanish Open.
In July, American Chris Gotterup won the Scottish Open. The Hong Kong and Australian opens will be played later this fall, while the South African Open will be contested in the spring.
“We hope that the incentive of awarding the winners an invitation … would also generate additional interest in those countries. I know that in Japan, recently, that was the case. I think it will be the case in all these countries.”
The LIV Question
No LIV Golf players have capitalized on the new Masters qualification criteria yet, but members of that league are eligible to compete in all six of those national opens.
The Hong Kong Open (Asian Tour) is part of the International Series, which has a partnership with LIV Golf. LIV is still in the process of working through its latest application to receive Official World Golf Ranking points.
Winners of LIV events do not receive automatic invites to The Masters, but some of the tour’s members have received special invites in recent years.
