@matt_courchene do we have any idea of what it would take for AK to play in a Major this year?
Just wondering, now that OWGR gives points to LIV …is there any realistic path for him to play in a major soon?
Got the info here: 2026 Major Championship Fields | Data Golf
For US Open he needs to maintain his top 3 in the LIV rankings and be first of non-exempt players. Rahm, Bryson, Hatton, Ortiz, Niemann, Cam already exempt. Would need to get into the top 100 in the world for PGA, and for The Open be the top ranked non-exempt LIV player. Masters would require a special invite at this point.
Maybe The Open is the easiest path in terms of qualification? Could theoretically be outside the top 5 in LIV rankings and as long as all ahead of him are exempt he gets in.
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Thanks ! Nice info.
Not that it matters that much but I’m finding myself rooting for the guy. Would be awesome for him to be able to play in a major again, no matter the outcome and how he plays.
Let’s see how he follows up on LIV and if he can keep a decent floor. Not really expecting him to win again. I guess the most likely outcome is he goes back to being meh …let’s see if he can keep a decent floor in the next 2-3 events.
I remember his first tournament in Jeddah, I bet him to not Top30 at like -330 odds and it was massive massive EV to DG numbers.
2 years later he has a win and we’re talking scenarios for him to get a place in a major field (for fun, but still).
Sports are awesome ! Golf is awesome !
100th in the OWGR currently has an average of 1.31 points. AK now has 27 points total and an average of 0.69. He will have the minimum divisor (40) for the foreseeable future so he’ll need to get to roughly 1.31*40 = 52 points. So he needs to accumulate ~25 before the PGA (points do eventually decay but that shouldn’t affect much before PGA). Here’s the point allocation from Adelaide:
I’ve also changed the title of this thread… maybe a bit more inviting to newcomers.
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I have been enjoying the market’s stance on Bryson recently.
Also just a quick heads up @matt_courchene @will_courchene - the win probability of the leader in the live model on LIV is presenting blank for me.
I thought maybe an issue with Dark mode, but looks ok on both on my end.
Try holding Shift and do a page refresh
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I literally just switched Dark Mode on and off again and it is fixed lol good shout.
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Ha, nice.
I was also wondering if Matt or Will came in like ninjas and pushed a quick fix in the 20 minutes between our posts 
It’s possible Will did. But I checked mine after T20 posted and wasn’t having issues in dark mode.
Bryson being priced similar to Puig to open last week’s event was bizarre. Not sure what caused that.
Looks like South Africa is a massive hit as well? Clearly their goal needs to be signing a legit SK team and blowing out the event there. Hideki would be their white whale, Japan Australia S Africa Korea seem like perfect markets for LIV and Aus/SAfr clearly the best bits so far
Ripper winning in Australia was a huge moment for team competition, Southern Guards doing it tonight would be awesome. Such an easy value add to put team golf
I think that was their goal this offseason, given the Si Woo and Sungjae rumours.
Shows they seem to be getting smarter. Not sure why they couldn’t get them though, big miss
I think most players still want to play in relevant golf tournaments.
LIV’s tournaments are relevant now that they get points to qualify for the big events. Same as PGA
The PGA pathetic attempts to bully and buy off media and OWGR worked long enough to essentially kill LIV in America (along with some LIV mistakes and ancient golf audience) but now I don’t see why anyone would rather play Valspar over LIV S Africa for example
I mean look at the scene of Mean Dean reaching the green yesterday. Unbelievable stuff
Valspar vs LIV South Africa is a disingenuous comp as I suspect you know. Rando PGA event wedged between The PLAYERS and The Masters vs one of LIVs two flagship events in a golf mad country.
However I can suggest somebody you should ask the ‘I don’t see why anyone would rather play Valspar over LIV South Africa’ question to: Brooks Koepka.
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LIV Hong Kong generated less interest on our site this year (relative to other tours) than it did two years ago. I’d say their events are still safely in the “irrelevant” bin.
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number of clicks on this website are not only measure of relevance
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Right but that’s my point. Random LIV event vs random PGA event are pretty fair comparisons now that the attempted bullying by PGA is finally over
A fair comp to LIV South Africa would be something like the WM Phoenix Open. A fair comp to the Valspar would be something like LIV Singapore.
We don’t need to consider all these hypotheticals about who would play where when we can just look at what has actually happened. Si Woo Kim and others could have taken a signing bonus and played in weaker events with bigger purses on LIV. But they chose not to. And so did every other top player this offseason.
Also please stop citing the boogeyman of “PGA bullying” without evidence. Data Golf is part of the media, and we have disliked LIV since day one, and we haven’t been bullied by anyone into holding this opinion.
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