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Four PGA Tour golfers – each a past or current major champion – will tee it up for the United States when the men’s Olympic tournament begins Thursday at Le Golf National near Paris.
But this year’s U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau won’t be one of them.
DeChambeau failed to earn enough points to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics last month ahead of fellow Americans Scottie Scheffler (No. 1 in the final rankings list), Xander Schauffele (No. 3), Wyndham Clark (No. 5) and Collin Morikawa (No. 7). With a maximum of only four spots per country available in both the men’s and women’s Olympic golf competition, DeChambeau (No. 10) missed out.
Why?
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Because he joined LIV Golf, basically.
It’s not that LIV golfers aren’t eligible to play in the Olympics. They are, and they will. Seven LIV golfers are in the field: Abraham Ancer (Mexico), Adrian Meronk (Poland), Joaquin Niemann (Chile), Carlos Ortiz (Mexico), Mito Pereira (Chile), David Puig (Spain) and Jon Rahm (Spain).
Those players, however, were able to qualify for countries that lacked as many top players vying for spots. For DeChambeau and American LIV players like Brooks Koepka, the qualifying format – the Olympics selects its field based on the official world golf rankings – cripples their chances, since they primarily play three-round LIV events that are not recognized by the OWGR.
Even prior to his U.S. Open victory in June, DeChambeau stood no chance to make the Olympic team.
After winning, he said he wanted to represent Team USA at the Olympics, and it was “frustrating and disappointing” that he wouldn’t be able.
“But I understand the decisions I made,” said DeChambeau, according to Golfweek, “and the way things have played out has not been necessarily perfectly according to plan. … It hurts, but you know what, there’s another one four years later. Hopefully, 2028 will be a little different situation, and it will make it that much sweeter.”
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