This Year’s Masters Features Smallest LIV Golf Contingent Yet

Next week will be the third Masters since the inception of LIV Golf, and the tournament will have its smallest field of players yet from the controversial tour.

There are 12 LIV players set to compete at Augusta National Golf Club, down from 13 last year and 18 in 2023. 

• Jon Rahm
• Bryson DeChambeau
• Brooks Koepka
• Joaquin Niemann
• Tyrrell Hatton
• Cam Smith
• Sergio Garcia
• Dustin Johnson
• Patrick Reed
• Phil Mickelson
• Charl Schwartzel
• Bubba Watson

This year’s LIV contingent is nearly identical to last year’s, minus Adrian Meronk, who won LIV’s 2025 season-opening event—and its $4 million first-place prize—in February, but is No. 192 in the Official World Golf Ranking, which LIV events don’t earn points for.

LIV has seven former Masters champions who receive lifetime invites, and three other major championship winners from the past five years, which also qualifies for an invite to Augusta. Hatton, who joined LIV ahead of the 2024 season, remains inside the top 50 rankings, and Niemann received a special invite for a second consecutive year.

The Masters field, currently set at 96, could expand by one if an otherwise uninvited player wins the PGA Tour’s Valero Texas Open this weekend, but winning LIV’s event in Miami does not automatically earn a Masters invite.

Back Together Again

“It’s disappointing for all of us. Those guys, I want to watch play,” said ESPN’s Curtis Strange—one of many golf pundits who lamented the fractured state of pro golf on various Masters preview calls this week. 

“I miss watching them play,” Strange said. “They made their decision, and that’s O.K. But I think that the public and the TV people and all of us fans of the game would like to see those guys play more often on our tour. Not to let them back, don’t get me wrong, but I wish they were playing on our tour, not over there.”

Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee pointed out that LIV players are largely not part of the discussion about who will win, because fans don’t see them as much. “It’s tough to really guess at how they’re really playing,” he said. “So it does add an element of mystery and excitement coming into the Masters.”

CBS on-course reporter Dottie Pepper said it’s exciting to get to cover the players they used to see week-to-week on the PGA Tour. “Those are the opportunities that we don’t have all the time because of where golf is,” she said. “But you approach them as professional, and thorough, and genuinely wanting to know what’s going on with them right now.”