Why are LIV golfers playing at the 2024 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship? Rahm, Koepka, Reed...

Many of the world’s top golfers gather at St. Andrews in Fife, Scotland this weekend for the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship. Played across three different courses, the four-day event is one of the most illustrious on the PGA European Tour.

The historic setting and healthy prize pot has lured many of the world’s best to Scotland this week, including a few faces that some will be surprised to see. A number of golfers who left the PGA Tour for the LIV Golf breakaway are also taking part.

The likes of Jon Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton, Patrick Reed and Brooks Koepka are among the 14 LIV Golf players included in this year’s event, despite the ongoing tension between the two tours.

Why are LIV Golf players eligible to play at St. Andrews?

There is no one single reason for their eligibility at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, with different routes in for the LIV Gold contingent. Rahm and Hatton are eligible to play as they technically remain PGA members while they continue their appeals against sanctions imposed on them by the Tour.

Koepka received an invite for the St. Andrews event as a well-known admiring of the Dunhill Links courses, previously citing the Old Course as his favourite in the world.

“I’ve been fortunate to play in several Dunhill Links, as well as two Open Championships at St Andrews over the years, and these trips are always highlights to my year,” Koepka said ahead of this year’s competition. “I love Links golf and St Andrews is my favourite course in the world. I could play there every day for the rest of my life and never get tired of it.”

Likewise Louis Oosthuizen, Dean Burmester, Caleb Surratt, Talor Gooch, Peter Uihlein, Branden Grace, Matt Jones, and Hudson Swafford were all invited by the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship Committee. The committee is run by Richemont, whose chairman, Johann Rupert, is pushing for a reunification of the game to strengthen professional golf.