Tom McKibbin became the first LIV Golf player to win his way into The Masters since Augusta National Golf Club changed its qualification criteria just over two months ago.
McKibbin, 22, on Sunday completed a dominant seven-stroke victory at the Hong Kong Open, which is one of six national opens that now give their winners spots in The Masters and Open Championship. The Northern Irishman earned $360,000 in prize money and improved his Official World Golf Ranking position from No. 109 to 85th.
Augusta National and the R&A (which operates the Open) announced new qualification methods in August, deciding to now award spots in their respective major championships to winners of the Australian, Hong Kong, Scottish, South African, and Spanish opens. In turn, The Masters is no longer sending automatic invites to winners of the PGA Tour’s fall series events, which it had previously done.
“Golf is a global game, and I think we always want to recognize that,” Augusta National Golf Club chairman Fred Ridley said last month when asked about the move.
Last month, Naoyuki Kataoka won the Japan Open, and Marco Penge won the Spanish Open. In July, Chris Gotterup won the Scottish Open. None of those three players are affiliated with LIV Golf.
Small Win for LIV Golf
McKibbin’s win is also a key victory for LIV Golf, which is still not able to award OWGR points at its events, with the league’s fifth season set to begin in February.
Winners of LIV events don’t automatically receive spots in any of the four major championships. Regular-season and playoff PGA Tour events do earn invites to all four majors, though.
The Hong Kong Open is an Asian Tour event that is part of the International Series, which has a partnership with LIV Golf. There were 29 LIV players in the field at the Hong Kong Open.
LIV players are eligible to compete in all six of the aforementioned national opens that now earn Masters invites, although qualifying for those tournaments is not guaranteed.
While LIV has several notable members who are former Masters winners— including Jon Rahm, Dustin Johnson, and Phil Mickelson, among others—no active LIV Golf player has won the Masters since the league launched in 2022. LIV’s Brooks Koepka won the 2023 PGA Championship, and Bryson DeChambeau won the 2024 U.S. Open.
