Augusta National will host just 10 LIV Golf members this week, the smallest group from the Saudi Arabian-backed circuit to reach the Masters since the league was founded. Carlos Ortiz and Tom McKibbin are set to make their Masters debuts as the golf world comes together again for a brief reunion.
That is down from 12 LIV Golf members in the field last year, a steady shrinkage that tracks the sport’s widening divide. Brooks Koepka has already returned to the PGA Tour, Patrick Reed plans to come back this fall after splitting with LIV Golf, and Phil Mickelson is out because of a personal health matter in his family. It will be the first Masters since 1994 without either Mickelson or Tiger Woods.
The name at the top of the LIV contingent remains Jon Rahm, who won in Hong Kong earlier this season and has finished inside the top five in all five of his LIV Golf starts in 2026. Rahm finished T14 at Augusta National last year, another reminder that the Masters has still offered him a stage even as the tour around him has shifted. Dustin Johnson, meanwhile, arrives with a different recent record: back-to-back cuts missed at Augusta and five missed cuts in his past eight major starts.
Bubba Watson has had a steadier return to the course, finishing T14 at the Masters last season, while Charl Schwartzel went T36 in 2025 after a T10 at Augusta in 2022. Sergio Garcia, the 2017 Masters champion after a playoff, has missed the cut in six of his seven starts at Augusta since that win. The pattern is clear enough without saying it: the LIV names are still in the Masters schedule, but fewer of them are arriving with the weight they once carried.
The broader picture is even starker. The number of LIV Golf members with status in the majors keeps dwindling, and whatever hope remained for a true merger appears gone. For one week, Augusta again puts the split on pause. After that, the separation returns, and the list of LIV players with a realistic path into the game’s biggest events is getting shorter.
