Seven LIV Golf players have received special invites to compete at next week’s PGA Championship, but there is one notable missing from the entrance list.
Louis Oosthuizen of LIV Golf has declined an offer to compete in next week’s PGA Championship due to ‘personal commitments’.
In total, 16 LIV players will compete in the second major of the season in Kentucky, including defending champion Brooks Koepka, who won his third PGA Championship at Oak Hill last May. Seven of them have received special invitations, since the league’s membership continues to decline in the international rankings.
The most notable name on the invite list is Talor Gooch, who has been given his first start in a major competition after becoming LIV’s 2023 champion. Gooch had career-best results last season, winning three times on the Saudi-backed circuit before capturing the year-long championship.
His efforts, however, were not recognised in the rankings, and LIV continued to host events without offering Official World Golf Ranking points. Gooch has dropped down the global rankings to 644th, making him ineligible to compete in the four main competitions of 2024.
After missing the Masters last month, he will make his big return with an invite to the PGA. He is joined on the special exemption list by Joaquin Niemann, Patrick Reed, Adrian Meronk, David Puig, and Lucas Herbert, who were announced as part of the Kentucky championship field on Tuesday.
One notable omission from the list was Oosthuizen. The Associated Press has now reported that the 41-year-old declined an offer to compete owing to unknown personal commitments. The South African has been in excellent form in recent months, competing in the Saudi-backed league, the DP World Tour, the Sunshine Tour, and the Asian Tour.
Oosthuizen, a former Open champion, has dominated away from LIV this season, winning back-to-back championships on the DP World Tour and Sunshine Tour in December. The South African won the Alfred Dunhill Championship at home before going on to win the Mauritius Open the following week.
The LIV star also finished second in the Asian Tour’s International Series event in Oman in February, and he finished second again on the breakaway circuit in Jeddah and Adelaide. He is presently ranked fourth in LIV’s season-long standings, with three top-10 results in his last five starts.
Oosthuizen missed his first Masters since 2008 last month, as his slip in the world rankings prevented him from qualifying for Augusta National. The South African went on to urge for ‘total transformation’ to make the four main events more accessible to LIV talents.
He told Gulf News, “I believe the entire system needs to reform altogether.If they don’t want to give us World Ranking points on LIV Golf, they should adjust the system so that Majors receive berths on each tour across the world, or something similar. I’m amazed those (OWGR) individuals have so much more experience than me, sitting on boards and performing their jobs, and I can’t believe there’s no solution.”