The Fall guys at international expense

Masters nixes PGA Tour fall winners to include five new international open champs

Ángel Hidalgo could’ve joined Jon Rahm at Augusta for winning Spanish Open playoff (Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)

The news doesn’t get any better for rank-and-file PGA Tour pros.

First they got squeezed out in favor of limited-field signature events (of which there will be a ninth one added next season to take away yet another playing opportunity).

Then they got a big haircut when the PGA Tour decided to reduce the number of tour cards from 125 to 100 in 2026 and as well as shrink field sizes across the board.

Now they’ve lost seven more shots at earning a Masters invitation — effective immediately — as Augusta National decided to take those golden tickets away from them in favor of promoting winners from five national opens not previously among the criteria for competing in the season’s first major.

Ouch! And the future competition committee created by new tour CEO Brian Rolapp hasn’t even started deliberating ways to promote further “scarcity.” You can expect a shorter PGA Tour season coming soon.

The Masters officially announced on Tuesday that it has withdrawn automatic invitations to the winners of the seven fall series events, in its place extending invitations starting with the 2026 Masters to the winners of six select national open championships across several international tours — the Australian, South African, Japan, Kong Kong, Spanish and Scottish Opens. Of those, the Genesis Scottish Open winner (Chris Gotterup) was already booked for Augusta in April as it’s a full-fledged FedEx Cup season PGA Tour-sanctioned event. (Sorry Irish or French Open champions, your more established, historic and not-previously-already-invited open winners didn’t pass muster, I guess.)

“The Masters Tournament has long recognized the significance of having international representation among its invitees,” Fred Ridley, chairman of Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters, said in a joint news release with the R&A regarding aligning aspects of the qualification criteria for the first and last major championships of the season.

“We, along with the R&A, have a shared commitment to the global game and are proud to work together. Today’s announcement strengthens our organizations’ collective vision of rewarding top talent around the world who rise to the top of historic national open championships. We hope this formal recognition shines a bright light on these players and the events they will represent at the Masters and the Open, beginning next year.”

To make room on the tee sheet at Augusta National in April — the Masters prefers to keep its field size below 100 players — qualification 17 was amended to invite only individual winners of PGA Tour events that award a full FedEx Cup point allocation applied to the season-ending Tour Championship. That means the winners of the seven remaining tour events this fall from the Procore Championship in Napa, California, Sept. 11-14 to the RSM Classic at Sea Island in Georgia Nov. 20-23 will no longer be extended Masters invitations.

It’s too bad because the Masters golden ticket was the most interesting aspect of those fall series events as all eight winners of the 2024 lineup made it to the Masters for winning those events, including five first time Masters participants (Rafael Campos, Nico Echavarria, Matt McCarty, Maverick McNealy and Kevin Yu), three of whom qualified exclusively on the back of those fall wins (Campos, Echavarria and Yu).

The PGA Tour’s expense is LIV Golf’s gain — sort of. While the Masters still has not created any direct qualifying criteria for breakaway Saudi-funded league, the selected international opens offer pathways to LIV players who can compete in them. Four of the last five Australian Open winners going back to 2018 are current LIV golfers, including Joaquin Niemann whose Aussie Open win in 2023 was cited for the Masters offering him a special international invitation to the 2024 Masters. Three of the last seven South African Open winners since 2018 are also LIV golfers: Dean Burmester, Louis Oosthuizen and Branden Grace. The Spanish and Hong Kong Opens have recently crowned past Masters winners Jon Rahm and Patrick Reed.

Had the new criteria been in place last year, the Masters would have welcomed four first-time participants who were all natives of their national opens — Ryggs Johnston (Australia), Dylan Naidoo (South Africa), Ángel Hidalgo (Spain) and Shugo Imahira (Japan).

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2026 Masters Field

Through 2025 Tour Championship

Here’s how the 67 players currently qualified to play in the 2026 Masters got into the field

# first-timers (9); * amateurs (4); Americans (40); Internationals (27); Seniors (7)

CATEGORY 1 (20 players)

Masters Tournament Champions (Lifetime)

Angel Cabrera (1) – Argentina

Fred Couples (1)

Sergio Garcia (1) – Spain

Dustin Johnson (1)

Zach Johnson (1, 13)

Hideki Matsuyama (1, 17, 18) – Japan

Rory McIlroy (1, 5, 18) – Northern Ireland

Phil Mickelson (1, 4)

Jose Maria Olazabal (1) – Spain

Jon Rahm (1, 2) – Spain

Patrick Reed (1, 13)

Scottie Scheffler (1, 3, 4, 5, 13, 17, 18)

Charl Schwartzel (1) – South Africa

Adam Scott (1) – Australia

Vijay Singh (1) – Fiji

Jordan Spieth (1)

Bubba Watson (1)

Mike Weir (1) – Canada

Danny Willett (1) – England

Tiger Woods (1)

CATEGORY 2 (4 players)

U.S. Open champions (Honorary, non-competing after 5 years)

Wyndham Clark (2) – through 2028

Bryson DeChambeau (2, 13) – through 2029

Matthew Fitzpatrick (2) – England – through 2027

J.J. Spaun (2, 18) – through 2030

CATEGORY 3 (4 players)

British Open Champions (Honorary, non-competing after 5 years)

Brian Harman (3, 18) – through 2028

Collin Morikawa (3, 4, 18) – through 2026

Xander Schauffele (3, 4, 13) – through 2029

Cameron Smith (3) – Australia – through 2027

CATEGORY 4 (2 players)

PGA Champions (Honorary, non-competing after 5 years)

Brooks Koepka (4) – through 2028

Justin Thomas (4, 18) – through 2027

CATEGORY 5 (0 players)

The Players Championship Winners (3 years)

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CATEGORY 6 (0 players)

Current Olympic Gold Medalist (for 2029)

TBD 2028 at Riviera Country Club

CATEGORY 7 A&B (2 players)

Current U.S. Amateur champion (A, Honorary, non-competing after 1 year) and runner-up (B)

#Jackson Herrington* (7-B)

#Mason Howell* (7-A)

CATEGORY 8 (1 player)

Current British Amateur Champion (Honorary, non-competing after 1 year)

#Ethan Fang* (8)

CATEGORY 9 (1 player)

Current Asia-Pacific Amateur Champion

TBD Oct. 23-26 at Emirates (Dubai) Golf Club

CATEGORY 10 (1 player)

Current Latin America Amateur Champion

TBD Jan. 15-18, 2026 at Lima (Peru) Golf Club

CATEGORY 11 (1 player)

Current U.S. Mid-Amateur Champion

TBD Sept. 13-18 at Troon North Golf Club

CATEGORY 12 (1 player)

Current NCAA Individual Champion

#Michael La Sasso* (12)

CATEGORY 13 (7 players)

First 12 players (including ties) in previous year’s Masters

Ludvig Åberg (13, 18) – Sweden

Corey Conners (13, 18) – Canada

Jason Day (13) – Australia

Harris English (13, 15, 16, 18)

Max Homa (13)

Sungjae Im (13, 18) – South Korea

Justin Rose (13, 17, 18) – England

CATEGORY 14 (5 players)

First 4 players (including ties) in previous year’s U.S. Open

Tyrrell Hatton (14) -- England

Viktor Hovland (14, 18) -- Norway

Robert MacIntyre (14, 18) – Scotland

Carlos Ortiz (14) – Mexico

Cameron Young (14, 17, 18)

CATEGORY 15 (2 players)

First 4 players (including ties) in previous year’s British Open

#Chris Gotterup (15, 17, 18)

Haotong Li (15) – (China)

CATEGORY 16 (1 player)

First 4 players (including ties) in previous year’s PGA Championship

Davis Riley (16)

CATEGORY 17 (8 players)

Individual winners from previous Masters to current Masters of non-opposite PGA Tour events that award a full FedEx Cup point allocation

Keegan Bradley (17, 18)

Brian Campbell (17)

Tommy Fleetwood (17, 18) – England

Ryan Fox (17) – New Zealand

#Ben Griffin (17, 18)

Kurt Kitayama (17)

Aldrich Potgieter (17) – South Africa

Sepp Straka (17, 18) – Austria

CATEGORY 18 (10 players)

Eligible qualifiers for previous year’s season-ending Tour Championship

Akshay Bhatia (18)

#Jacob Bridgeman (18)

Sam Burns (18)

Patrick Cantlay (18)

#Harry Hall (18) – England

Russell Henley (18)

Shane Lowry (18) – Ireland

Maverick McNealy (18)

#Andrew Novak (18)

Nick Taylor (18) – Canada

CATEGORY 19 (0 players)

Current Scottish Open champion

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CATEGORY 20 (TBD)

Current Spanish Open champion

TBD Oct. 9-12, 2025 at Club de Campo Villa de Madrid

CATEGORY 21 (TBD)

Current Japan Open champion

TBD Oct. 16-19, 2025 at Nikko Country Club

CATEGORY 22 (TBD)

Current Hong Kong Open champion

TBD Oct. 30-Nov. 2, 2025 at Hong Kong Golf Club

CATEGORY 23 (TBD)

Current Australian Open champion

TBD Dec. 4-7, 2025 at Royal Melbourne Golf Club

CATEGORY 24 (TBD)

Current South African Open champion

TBD Feb. 2026 at Stellenbosch Golf Club

CATEGORY 25 (TBD)

Top 50 on final Official World Golf Ranking for previous calendar year

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CATEGORY 26 (TBD)

Top 50 on Official World Golf Ranking published week prior to current Masters

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SPECIAL EXEMPTION (TBD)

The Masters Committee, at its discretion, also invites international players otherwise not qualified

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* will be 50 by April 9, 2026