LIV Golf's Talor Gooch Receives Invitation to Upcoming PGA Championship
While it would have been a given in the past, an invite to the PGA Championship was not assured until Talor Gooch was given official word by the PGA of America that he will be part of the field at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, N.Y., next month.
Gooch said via social media on Friday morning in Singapore that he had been given an invite by the PGA of America, which became even more important to him because he will likely need a good performance in order to qualify for the U.S. Open in June.
"Just got my invite to the PGA Champ," Gooch tweeted less than two hours before his tee time at the LIV Golf Singapore event. "Now just in a position where I can play well and get in that top 60. Wish this wasn’t the case, but not an unfamiliar place."
Gooch, who won LIV’s event in Australia on Sunday and shot 64 Friday at its Singapore event to grab the Round 1 lead, was referring to the United States Golf Association category that allows an exemption to anyone ranked among the top 60 in the Official World Golf Ranking on May 22 or June 12.
The PGA Championship final round is May 21 and Gooch is currently 59th in the world and likely to drop out of the top 60. (He is 38th in the SI World Golf Rankings.)
His participation in the PGA Championship was not assured because the PGA of America was under no obligation to invite him, even though it has traditionally used the OWGR to offer invites to those not already qualified and does so to assure one of the best fields of the year.
The PGA will make its field official on May 8. It uses a year-long PGA points list that is based on PGA Tour performance to fill roughly half the field, as well as exemptions for tournament winners, past major winners and the top 20 club pros from its annual championship. That typically leaves some 30 spots available for invites, and the PGA of America has typically gone down the OWGR list to get as many of the top 100 in the world as possible.
Gooch learned earlier this year when the USGA announced its exemption criteria for the U.S. Open, June 15-18 at Los Angeles Country Club, that he was not eligible for a spot in the field given to those who are among the top 30 in final the final FedEx Cup standings.
Despite not playing a regular PGA Tour event after May 2022, Gooch still earned enough FedEx points to be among the top 30, which traditionally has meant a spot in the Masters, U.S. Open and British Open.
Gooch had been part of an unsuccessful lawsuit against the PGA Tour seeking an injunction that would have allowed him to compete in the FedEx Cup playoffs. Denied on the eve of the first event in Memphis, Gooch qualified anyway although he was not allowed to play.
The Masters kept its qualification wording the same as did the British Open. Gooch qualified for the Masters also via the top 50 in the world category. And he’ll be at Royal Liverpool in July for the Open due to the top 30 FedEx exemption.
But the USGA tweaked its wording to say "those players who qualified and were eligible for the season-ending Tour Championship." The words "were eligible" were added to the qualification list this year, thus denying Gooch because he along with other LIV players are not eligible to compete in PGA Tour events.
According to the USGA, Gooch did not file an entry for the U.S. Open prior to the April 13 deadline, meaning he will not be eligible for final qualifying, a route several other LIV golfers plan to take. He would, however, be able to play if he meets the top 60 criteria.