He’s signed plenty of Spanish talent on LIV Golf – but there’s one rising star that Sergio Garcia couldn’t persuade to join…
David Puig, Josele Ballester, Luis Masaveu and Eugenio Chacarra have all ditched the established route of the PGA Tour in recent years to team with their compatriot Sergio Garcia and sign with LIV Golf.
But unlike most of the next wave of Spanish talent, Angel Ayora is resisting the league’s overtures and taking the traditional path to golf’s elite instead.
The 21-year-old, who narrowly missed out on a PGA Tour card during last year’s rookie season on the DP World Tour, is understood to have first turned down an approach from LIV in late 2024. At that stage, Ayora was a fresh-faced Challenge Tour graduate taking his first seat at Europe’s top table.
But after an impressive debut campaign that included a run of six top-10 finishes in seven starts, Ayora only just missed out on the circuit’s Rookie of the Year award behind Frenchman Martin Couvra.
He finished 20th in the 2025 Race to Dubai standings, just three spots from snaffling a PGA Tour card via DP World Tour’s 10 card initiative. Undoubtedly, his stock was on the rise.
And so this time around, the LIV call came directly from Garcia.
“I had the chance to go there,” Ayora tells TG at the Emirates Club, where he is playing in this week’s Hero Dubai Desert Classic.
“I told [Garcia] it was a pleasure for me to be a part of his team, but I told him my dream is to play on the PGA Tour, so I’m going to try to keep this path.
“I want to be at the top 50 in the world and I want to play the majors and everything, so I think the right path for me is to stay here on DP and trying to get a PGA Tour card and play there.
“That’s what I want to do, so I’m going to fight for that.”
Ayora’s admission comes after Garcia confirmed an all-Spanish lineup for his Fireballs GC team for the upcoming 2026 season.
Ballester, the 2024 US Amateur champion, had replaced Masaveu in Garcia’s side halfway through last season to play alongside Puig and Mexican Abraham Ancer.
But after Ancer was traded to Torque GC, Garcia was on the lookout for a new signing. The 2017 Masters champion eventually informed Masaveu last month that he would complete his side for this season.
“We we weren’t sure that if we waited until the end of the season that [Ballester] was still going to be available,” Garcia told TG at a LIV media event in Florida last week. “We had to take that chance, and unfortunately that that meant that Luis wasn’t going to be able to to do the whole year with us.
“But things worked out, and now he’s back with us, and he’s going to do this whole year at least.”
It certainly worked out for Masaveu, who told TG he found out during the International Series event in Riyadh in November and “gave it a big fist pump” – but it may have been so different had Ayora seen things differently.
Ayora, meanwhile, has eyes only for America. The world No.117 is already in the field for this year’s Open at Royal Birkdale, but he’s in a hurry to establish himself as a major force.
Managed by Javier Ballesteros, son of European Tour legend Seve, Ayora dreams about winning the Masters above all other tournaments. The Ryder Cup is high up on his list of ambitions, too.
Before that, though, the youngster’s main focus is on claiming a PGA Tour card and cracking the top-50 in the world. Given his supreme ball-striking abilities, a DP World Tour victory for Ayora in 2026 would come as a surprise to nobody.
“My first year was a very, very good year,” he reflects. “A pity because I was very close to the PGA Tour card, but in general very happy for the season and for my game.
“It’s my dream as a kid and to be in the top 50 in the world, so I will fight for that. I’m very close because my game in general is very good, just a touch with the short game and putting. I think most of it is mental. It’s a matter of time that I learn how to deal with those moments, but I think I’m close.”