The 2024 Masters field could be the smallest one in more than 30 years.

Is it a sign the tournament should tweak its qualification?

The Masters has had the smallest field of all four men’s majors throughout most of the modern era. There have been fewer than 100 players at every Masters dating back to 1967. The field size has regularly dipped slightly below 90 players including last year when there were 88.

However, this year’s might be well short of those typical numbers.

The tournament has far more stringent qualification criteria than the other three majors. There are normally around 156 players in the U.S. Open, Open Championship and PGA Championship.

But for the Masters, exclusivity has always been a priority. There are 20 ways to qualify but six of them are only for amateurs and some other paths require great performance in majors.

It’s hard to get in and, due to the state of professional golf, it might be getting harder.

Why the Masters field could be getting smaller

To this point, there are only 77 players expected to play in this April’s Masters.

Unless that number grows to 86 or more, it will be the smallest field since 1992 when only 83 competed. If it doesn’t reach 80, it will be the first time that has happened since 1985 when there were 77.

There were 11 players added once the ball dropped in Times Square last weekend. Those 11 resided within the top 50 of the Official World Golf Ranking who hadn’t previously qualified. The field also recently added four PGA Tour winners from the fall.

One more player is guaranteed to be included as the Latin America Amateur champion will receive an exemption.

Beyond that, nothing is certain.

There are only two more ways for players to make sure they are driving down Magnolia Lane to compete in the Masters this April: win one of the 14 remaining PGA Tour events or get into the top 50 of the OWGR by April 7, the week before the tournament.

The betting odds would say most of those tour events will be won by players who are already exempt. And while there is fluidity to the OWGR, it’s possible only a few more players get in through that route.

So why is it so small this year? The main answer is LIV Golf.

There are no world ranking points in LIV events, so some players who would normally be in position to qualify for the Masters are not getting in this time. Joaquin Niemann (No. 65), Dean Burmester (No. 72) and Abraham Ancer (No. 132) are among those who have dropped out of the field. Talor Gooch won $36 million on LIV last year and is not in the Masters field because of his world ranking.

Last year, 18 LIV players competed in the Masters. There will likely only be 10 this time because of the players who have dropped in the OWGR.

The 10 who remain are either past Masters champions (which comes with a lifetime exemption) or those who have won another major in recent years.

Three of those 10 could fall out in future years. For instance, Bryson DeChambeau’s five-year exemption for winning the 2020 U.S. Open will eventually expire. He would have to post a top-four finish in another major to get back into the Masters field—but DeChambeau’s status in those majors (minus the U.S. Open where he has a 10-year exemption) could also be in question in a couple of years.

Cameron Smith and Brooks Koepka are the other two LIV players who are not Masters champions but still have a spot in the field. The other seven (Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed, Bubba Watson, Jon Rahm, Sergio Garcia, Phil Mickelson and Charl Schwartzel) have all won the Masters.

There is also the potential of other top players leaving for LIV and falling out of their exemption.

You may be asking why the field numbers aren’t being evened out by PGA Tour players entering the top 50. Well, that could still happen. However, the problem for now is the players who are already qualified for the Masters have taken up other potential exemptions beyond the top 50.

One example of that is how top major finishers get a spot in the Masters. There were 22 players who finished in those qualifying spots last year. All are exempt through another route so they didn’t even need those major finishes to qualify. Eight of those players are from LIV.

Almost all of the players who are already in the Masters are exempt in multiple ways.

Long story short: As long as LIV exists in its current form (which is still up in the air), the Masters field will probably be smaller than we’ve come to expect.

How the Masters can expand its field

If you think the Masters should add players (more on that in the next section), what is the best way to do it?

There is ample precedent for the Masters tweaking its qualification criteria. Just last year, the tournament announced a permanent exemption for the NCAA champion (Fred Biondi, the 2023 winner, turned professional and forfeited his exemption). Criteria have changed dozens of times over the event’s history.

Calls have been made for LIV players to have their own route to the Masters. DeChambeau said the top 12 players in LIV’s points standings should get into the majors and a LIV official said there were discussions about getting their players into majors. 

Masters chairman Fred Ridley and R&A chief executive Martin Slumbers (who oversees the Open Championship) slammed the door on those rumors. However, Ridley made it clear they would continue to assess the field.

“We adjust to what we feel is in the best interest of a tournament representing the best players in the world,” Ridley said during a press conference for the Asia Pacific Amateur Championship. “We’ll always look at that.”

There are a couple of options for the Masters to add players while still honoring the OWGR, which they’ve made clear is important to them.

The most obvious is to extend the OWGR criteria to include the top 60. If that was in place this year, Chris Kirk, Matt Kuchar, Alex Noren, Robert MacIntyre, Brendon Todd, Adam Svensson, Lee Hodges and Byeong Hun An would get spots—eight quality players who could add to the tournament.

Something else that could be interesting is if the Masters allowed the top 50 FedEx Cup finishers to gain entry. Currently, the tournament gives exemptions only to Tour Championship qualifiers, who are the top 30 FedEx Cup finishers.

The top 50 mark now is important because it offers a direct line into the tour’s designated events. The Masters could play off of that structural change.

This tweak would have added eight players for this year’s Masters: Kirk, Svensson, An, Todd, Andrew Putnam, Seamus Power, Tom Hoge and Patrick Rodgers. It’s enough to replenish without going overboard.

Another plausible idea is exempting more top major finishers, perhaps pushing it to the top seven finishers in the PGA Championship, U.S. Open and Open Championship. The Masters invites back its top 12 finishers from the previous year but even that could be extended.

There is also the possibility of offering one or two more special exemptions each year. The Masters gave one to amateur Gordon Sargent last year and they have given similar exemptions in the past.

Some combination of these tweaks could easily get the field back to around 90 to 95 players which is still an exclusive group.

Why does any of this matter?

There are two schools of thought when it comes to the Masters field.

Some just want the “best of the best” there and that will always be the case. Having the field number dip into the low 80s isn’t a concern because any added players would be unlikely to win anyway.

That is fair but we would argue the tournament is better when more quality players are added into the mix. They might not win or even contend but they could add to the competition.

There is really no harm in bumping the numbers up slightly to account for LIV’s impact. A lot of this could change depending on the potential PGA Tour partnership with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund—and where LIV falls in the professional golf ecosystem—but it feels likely that the Masters will have to make meaningful tweaks at some point, no matter what happens.

How many players actually have a shot to win the Masters? The field already includes a handful of amateurs and past champions who are often ceremonial. It feels appropriate to add a few players who are clearly still competitive.

The other majors don’t have to consider this. They have a set number of spots and keep adding players until they reach that number.

It is part of what makes the Masters special—just getting there is a huge accomplishment.

But it is also a balance to keep the tournament as competitive as possible while maintaining its historic exclusivity.

If it were up to us, the gate to Magnolia Lane would open just a little wider.

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