Talor Gooch revealed the PGA Championship has granted him his first major start of the season.
The LIV Golf star and winner of the Saudi-backed league’s individual title in 2023 wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that he’d been invited to play at Valhalla next week.
“Looking forward to Valhalla next week! Thank you for the invitation @PGA See y’all there,” he said.
Having played in three major championships last year, Gooch’s eligibility had run dry by the turn of 2024. He missed the Masters for the first time since 2021 and his world ranking has plummeted outside the top 600 as the LIV Golf League forges on without Official World Golf Ranking status.
The PGA of America granted 37 invitations in 2023 at Oak Hill. Gooch’s LIV Golf colleague David Puig has also been offered an invite to the second major of the year.
Gooch’s post to social media will no doubt raise eyebrows as he has never been shy to express his gripes with the major organisations, having previously said the majors “haven’t got on board” with LIV Golf.
Talor Gooch: PGA Championship invite arrives one week before the event
Ahead of the showpiece at Augusta National last month, Gooch said if Rory McIlroy were to win the Green Jacket and complete the career grand slam, it would require an asterisk because there were LIV players who weren’t eligible who he felt should have been.
“10 or 20 years down the road, we’re going to look back on this time and realise there was instability in the game at the professional level,” Gooch later said.
“When you look at the names that I think most people at our level believe are some of the best in the world and they’re not in that field, it’s going to be noteworthy, and again, it doesn’t take away from the accomplishment, but it is noteworthy.”
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Last week, Gooch thickened the plot in his relationship with the major championships when he told the media at LIV Golf’s event in Singapore that he won’t be playing in regional qualifying for the US Open or The Open.
The 32-year-old didn’t play in the US Open last year after the USGA altered the eligibility criteria. Gooch thought he had a spot having qualified for the 2022 Tour Championship on the PGA Tour, but the USGA’s criteria stated you had to be eligible to play in the season-ending finale and by that point, Gooch had already joined LIV Golf and been suspended by the tour.
The PGA Championship is being held on May 16 – 19.
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