{"id":115999,"date":"2025-09-03T15:48:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T15:48:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/115999\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T15:48:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T15:48:06","slug":"national-opens-now-provide-an-even-bigger-incentive-for-liv-golf-players-this-offseason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/115999\/","title":{"rendered":"National Opens now provide an even bigger incentive for LIV Golf players this offseason"},"content":{"rendered":"

AUSTRALIAN OPEN (Dec. 4-7, 2025) \u2013 Current LIV Golf players have thrived in Australia\u2019s national open in recent years, winning four of the past five competitions \u2013 Abraham Ancer<\/a> in 2018, Matt Jones<\/a> in 2019, Adrian Meronk<\/a> in 2022 and Joaquin Niemann<\/a> in 2023 (the tournament was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to Covid). Cameron Smith<\/a>\u2019s Masters exemption for winning the 2022 Open still has two years left, so he\u2019s good for next year, but his fellow Rippers Jones, Marc Leishman<\/a> and Lucas Herbert<\/a> could use an invite.<\/p>\n

SOUTH AFRICAN OPEN (Feb. 26-March 1, 2026) \u2013 Three members of Stinger GC<\/a> \u2013 Dean Burmester<\/a>, Branden Grace<\/a> and captain Louis Oosthuizen<\/a> \u2013 are past champions of their national open, and each currently lacks a Masters invite. (The fourth Stinger, Charl Schwartzel<\/a>, won the Masters in 2011 and would gladly enjoy some company next April.)<\/p>\n

Although The Open Championship has yet to announce its exemptions for the 2026 Open, R&A officials indicated they will be aligned with Augusta National in terms of exemptions for the selected national opens. That\u2019s especially good news for the Hong Kong Open, which wasn\u2019t part of the exemption list this year.<\/p>\n

The Australian Open, South African Open, and Scottish Open already were part of The Open Qualifying Series for 2025, and the Japan Open champion also received an exemption, so now the winner of those Opens will be able to double-dip into two majors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe share the same goal as Augusta National to offer places in both The Open and the Masters to players competing in national opens and by doing so to help to showcase and strengthen our sport in those regions,\u201d said Mark Darbon, Chief Executive of The R&A.<\/p>\n

LIV Golf players, accustomed to playing a global schedule, have shown an inclination to compete in these historic tournaments. With the added incentive of a potential trip to Augusta National next April, their participation numbers could grow. The offseason promises to be a busy one for players chasing major invites, but the reward just became substantially more intriguing.<\/p>\n

EXEMPTIONS<\/p>\n

Confirmed exemptions for LIV Golf players for next year\u2019s four majors. Other exemptions will be determined via ranking, qualifiers, special invitations and other pathways based on each tournament\u2019s qualifications. Tyrrell Hatton<\/a>, for instance, is expected to receive a PGA Championship exemption based on his Ryder Cup participation this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTRALIAN OPEN (Dec. 4-7, 2025) \u2013 Current LIV Golf players have thrived in Australia\u2019s national open in recent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116000,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-115999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}