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Augusta Nationwide Golf Membership chairman Fred Ridley says The Masters gained’t be afraid to make use of particular invites to make sure that prime LIV golfers stay a part of the event.
In an additional signal of the thaw between golf’s wrangling powerbrokers, Ridley, who struck a conciliatory tone, even refused to fully rule out having direct entry sooner or later for LIV gamers to qualify.
There are 13 members of Saudi-backed LIV Golf in The Masters this yr, together with defending champion Jon Rahm, however the overwhelming majority qualify through being former Masters winners or successful different Majors.
With the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR) not awarding any factors for LIV competitions, it’s more and more troublesome for his or her gamers to interrupt into the Majors through spots within the prime 50 within the year-end rankings.
Augusta Nationwide is on the OWGR board and Ridley stated it stays “the respectable determiner of who the perfect gamers within the sport are” however supplied a reminder that The Masters is just not an open championship.
“We’re an invitational, and we are able to alter as vital,” stated Ridley who highlighted the particular invitation given to LIV’s Joaquin Niemann, who gained the Australian Open.
“We thought he was deserving of a particular invitation,” Ridley stated. “Now, traditionally, and as said in our qualification standards, we think about worldwide gamers for particular invites. However we do have a look at these yearly and I’ll say that if we felt that there have been a participant or gamers, whether or not they performed on the LIV Tour or another Tour, who had been deserving of an invite to The Masters, that we might train that discretion with regard to particular invites.”
Ridley stated such an invites could be “subjective consideration primarily based on expertise, primarily based on efficiency to these gamers.”
“Our aim is to have, to the best extent doable, the perfect area in golf, the perfect gamers on the earth,” stated Ridley.
“Having stated that, we by no means have had all the perfect gamers on the earth due to the construction of our event. It’s an invitational. It’s restricted area. It’s a small area.”
The Masters invitations previous champions and main amateurs to play within the event in addition to having a qualification construction and particular invites.
LIV withdrew an software to the OWGR after failing to succeed in an settlement on how their tournaments could be rated and Ridley was requested if Augusta would think about a way of LIV gamers qualifying by their very own construction.
Whereas casting doubt on how that may work, he didn’t rule it out.
“I don’t know the reply to that,” he stated. “I believe will probably be troublesome to ascertain any kind of level system that had any connection to the remainder of the world of golf as a result of they’re principally, not completely however for probably the most half, a closed store.
“These issues had been expressed by the OWGR, however I don’t suppose that stops us from giving subjective consideration primarily based on expertise, primarily based on efficiency, to these gamers.
“I’d not foreclose that we might think about that sooner or later.”
Ridley additionally addressed the query of declining PGA Tour TV scores within the USA and the query of whether or not that was collateral harm from the rift inside the sport.
Whereas noting that fragmentation in viewing habits impacts many sports activities, he stated golf did seem like struggling greater than others.
“I’ll acknowledge that, in case you have a look at the info this yr, golf viewers are down on linear tv whereas different sports activities, another sports activities are up. So you possibly can draw your individual conclusions,” he stated.
Ridley echoed the view of a number of gamers on each side of the divide that there wanted to be extra occasions with the elite taking part in one another.
“Actually the truth that the perfect gamers on the earth usually are not convening fairly often is just not useful,” he stated. “Whether or not or not there’s a direct causal impact [on ratings], I don’t know. However I believe that it could be loads higher in the event that they had been collectively extra typically.”
© Agence France-Presse
Picture: Andrew Redington/Getty Photos
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