British Open Chief Says It’s Not On His ‘Agenda’ To Ban LIV Golfers From British Open—But Hints At Their Murky Future In Majors

Banning LIV Golf players is “not on our agenda” for next year’s British Open, Martin Slumbers, the chief executive of Royal & Ancient, said at a press conference ahead of the British Open teeing off Thursday in St. Andrews, Scotland.

However, Slumbers hinted that if LIV golfers are excluded from other qualifying events such as the PGA Tour, they might not be able to rank highly enough to be invited to play at the British Open.

Slumbers said the R&A “agenda” includes a “review [of] our exemptions and qualifications criteria,” a likely nod to LIV Golf’s outstanding application for its tournament to be recognized in the Official World Golf Rankings.

LIV Golf’s application may be doomed, as the group reviewing its request includes the heads of some of its biggest rivals, including Slumbers, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan and the heads of the bodies overseeing golf’s other three majors.

If the application is indeed rejected, then most LIV Golf players, who are banned from PGA Tour events, will likely slowly start failing to qualify for majors.

The Official World Golf Rankings are calculated on a two-year rolling basis and are how golfers qualify for majors, save for exemptions for prior winners, such as the Masters guaranteeing lifetime qualifications for past winners like LIV Golf participants Sergio Garcia, Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson and Charl Schwartzel.

Keeping LIV Golf players out of majors would deal a crushing blow to the upstart circuit, which the PGA Tour desperately needs, as many defectors, including Johnson and Mickelson, have expressed their strong desire to keep playing in majors.