Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images
LIV Golf has spent the past few years attempting to establish itself as a legitimate competitor to the PGA Tour, but players who’ve joined have faced an uphill battle if they want to take part in a major tournament. However, they’ve gotten some help on that front based on a couple of new exemptions that have been revealed ahead of the U.S. Open.
The Official World Golf Ranking is one of the primary tools used to determine who gets to participate in the four majors on the annual golf calendar, which makes sense when you consider that particular body has historically been the ultimate authority when it comes to evaluating the sport’s top talents.
However, the rise of LIV Golf has made things a bit more complicated. The OWGR’s decision to decline the league’s repeated requests for certification before it gave up on that quest has led to its best golfers being largely forced to rely on preexisting exemptions in order to participate in The Masters, PGA Championship, British Open, and U.S. Open.
However, that’s no longer the case for the last tournament on that list.
On Wednesday, the USGA rolled out the list of exemptions for the U.S. Open that will get underway at Oakmont Country Club on June 12th, which includes two new caveats for LIV Golf:
For the 2025 championship, a full exemption will be awarded to the top player who is not otherwise exempt and in the top 3 of the 2025 LIV Golf Individual Standings as of May 19, 2025.
In addition, a local exemption will be awarded to the top 10 players from the 2025 LIV Golf Individual Standings as of April 7, 2025.
This is the first major to explicitly carve out spots for LIV Golf members, although Joaquin Niemann has received an exemption at The Masters the past two years due to his play on international circuits.
As things currently stand, seven LIV Golf affiliates have already punched their ticket to the U.S. Open.
Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, and Dustin Johnson are all exempt this year due to their wins at the U.S. Open in the past decade. Phil Mickelson gets a pass thanks to his win at the PGA Championship in 2021, Cameron Smith is still riding the exemption from his win at The British Open in 2022, and Richard Bland came out on top at the U.S. Senior Open last summer.
LIV Golf is kicking off its season in Riyadh this week, so while there’s no way to know what the standings will look like by the time those deadlines roll around, Sergio Garcia, Tyrell Hatton, Louis Oosthuizen, Dean Burmester, and Talor Gooch also would have gotten invites to the U.S. Open if they were based on how the Top 10 looked at the end of last year’s campaign.