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Louis Oosthuizen is one of the LIV Golf players who will not have the opportunity to return to Augusta National Golf Club in 2024. However, the South African is anything but surprised.
Oosthuizen is in Oman to play the first tournament of the 2024 Asian Tour's International Series. The 2010 Open Championship winner gave an interview to Gulf News and the topic of his presence at The Masters 2024 was part of the topics he answered questions about.
Here is part of what Louis Oosthuizen had to say about it (via Gulf News):
"When I made the decision to join LIV Golf, I knew it was inevitable. I knew the day would come where I wasn’t able to play a tournament like Augusta. To be honest with you, that golf course is so long right now that I'm struggling around it. There’s more seven woods and three irons into par 4s there than was in 2009 and 2010."
"I'll miss it because it's an unbelievable experience. It's a great golf course, a great tournament, but I honestly think the golf course is a little bit too long for me now anyway."
Louis Oosthuizen also said that he is "at peace" with no longer playing The Masters and added:
"I made my peace with not playing in the Majors, fortunately I can still play The Open, but it’s a shame to see great players not getting what they deserve and hopefully they [OWGR] can do something quickly about it."
"I think the whole system needs to change completely. If they don’t want to give us World Ranking points on LIV Golf then they should change the system where they give spots to Majors on each tour around the world or something like that."
The Masters Tournament authorities issued three invitations to players not otherwise exempt on Wednesday, February 21. One of those went to LIV Golf player Joaquin Niemann, while the other two went to Japan's Ryo Hisatsune and Denmark's Thorbjorn Olesen.
Louis Oosthuizen at The Masters Tournament
The South African played The Masters Tournament for 15 consecutive editions (2009-2023), with four missed cuts (he withdrew twice). He only reached one Top 10, but that was second place in the 2012 edition.
His overall performance in majors includes participation in 58 editions. In addition to having won The Open in 2010, he finished in 10 other Top 10s. Oosthuizen finished six times as runner-up and twice in third place.
