Far be it from me to be telling Augusta National how to carry out their business, but the fact that the Mexico Open, with a field rating of 184.19 in the OWGR metrics, carries a guaranteed invitation to the Masters doesn’t seem right. Not when other, far more competitive events, don’t.
To put that in context, the lowest field rating of a PGA Tour event prior to this in 2025 was 283.04 at the Farmers Insurance Open, making the Mexico Open the weakest field by some distance.
That’s not meant as a slight on Brian Campbell, the 31-year-old previous journeyman who defied the odds to plot his way round a course that’s tailor-made for big-hitting, bomb-and-gouge specialists, and will make a first ever Masters appearance as a result, it’s just a simple fact.
Perhaps it’s even more pertinent to point out that winners of events on the PGA Tour’s FedEx Fall Series have already received their Masters invitations in the post as well, so the likes of Rafael Campos – winner of the 128.23-rated Butterfield Bermuda Championship – and Chun-An Yu (also known as Kevin Yu) – winner of the 179.65-rated Sanderson Farms Championship – are also set to make maiden Masters appearances.
Tradition, of course, is something that Augusta National and the club’s members hold dear, and traditionally, all PGA Tour winners – opposite events excluded – from the conclusion of one year’s Masters to the start of the next get invited, but traditionally, the PGA Tour has always been the place where virtually all of the best players in the world play golf.
And it may be again, if Donald Trump’s influence and the desire for reunification are strong enough, but it’s not at present – not while the likes of Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Tyrrell Hatton, Cameron Smith and Joaquin Niemann are all prohibited from playing.
All of these players can – and most do – play select events on the DP World Tour, yet the only path to the Masters from the DP World Tour is by being in the top 50 in the OWGR either at year’s end, or a fortnight prior to the Masters’ scheduled conclusion. But of course their abilities to earn world rankings points are null on LIV, and massively reduced in DP World Tour and Asian Tour events due to the current OWGR setup, and this has a knock-on effect to the events they do participate in as the strength of field and world rankings points allocated as a result are negatively skewed.
Take the Hero Dubai Desert Classic, for example. It had a field rating of 199.80, but Hatton at 17 in the world coming in, Rahm at 31, Dean Burmester at 117, Patrick Reed at 132, Adrian Meronk at 139 and Thomas Pieters at 357 all did little to bump up the rating even though their presence – exemplified by Hatton winning – made the tournament that much stronger overall.
But there were no Masters invites on offer there, of course, and it’s unlikely there ever will be, even though it would make sense for the winner of a Rolex Series event to be granted an Augusta National invite as well.
The same goes for LIV events. I’m not suggesting that the winner of each LIV event gets a guaranteed place in the Masters field, but it’s a surprise that the major championship that was the first to assert that those who were viewed as deserters, as disruptors, and in many eyes, as traitors, would still be welcome at Augusta as long as they fit the requisite criteria, hasn’t included an exemption category to ensure that the other top players in LIV’s stable all come down Magnolia Drive.
It’s in the majors’ own interests to have the best possible fields assembled, and the likes of Meronk may yet get a special invitation issued, but the current LIV Rankings number one is not in the field and Brian Campbell, Rafael Campos and Chun-An Yu are.
And one of those four is a much more likely major championship contender than the other three.
It’s hard to see Augusta National adopting anything more than a ‘wait and see’ until some sort of meaningful deal is signed and sealed, but should the PGA Tour, LIV and the DP World Tour all continue to co-exist in the new landscape, then the Masters organisers may have to reassess the overreliance on PGA Tour events as a means of getting the 100 or so players they most want to have on that magical week in April.
Leave a comment