Ryan Gerard made his 10,000-mile trip worth the effort Sunday when he was runner-up at the Mauritius Open, good enough for him to join 13 other players who qualified for Masters invitations by finishing the year in the top 50 of the Official World Golf Ranking.
That brings the field to 86 players who are likely to compete — a list that includes Tiger Woods, who has not announced if he is playing — going into the new year.
Players can still earn invitations
by winning a PGA Tour event (opposite-field events excluded) or getting into the top 50 a week before the Masters.
While the final world ranking will not be published for another week, there are no other tournaments that affect the top 50 and the OWGR already has projected the top 50. Sam Stevens will finish at No. 50 by a narrow margin over Taylor Pendrith of Canada.
Alex Noren at No. 11 is the highest-ranked player who was not already eligible, courtesy of two wins in England, including the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth.
Kristoffer Reitan of Norway (Nedbank Golf Challenge, Michael Kim (French Open), Sami Valimaki of Finland (RSM Classic) and Michael Brennan (Utah Championship) all won tournaments in the fall that helped secure their spots in the world ranking.
The others who will finish in the top 50 are Aaron Rai, Max Greyserman, Rasmus Hojgaard, Min Woo Lee, Si Woo Kim and Johnny Keefer.
Brennan and Keefer present unique cases. Brennan spent most of 2025 on the PGA Tour Americas circuit, two steps down from the PGA Tour. He won three times and had nine other top-10 finishes. And then he received a sponsor exemption to the Bank of Utah Championship and won his first PGA Tour title that moved him into top 50.
Keefer was on the Korn Ferry Tour and won twice, allowing him to break into the top 50 and narrowly hold down his spot.
The Masters altered its criteria this year, eliminating an invitation to the FedEx Cup Fall events and replacing that with national opens around the world. Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen of Denmark got in by winning the Australian Open, while Marco Penge (Spanish Open) and Tom McKibbin of LIV Golf (Hong Kong Open) also qualified.
The Masters is keen on keeping the field under 100 players — not since 1966 has it exceeded that number — and it would appear to be on track to stay that way. Two spots will be filled by the Latin America Amateur Championship in January and the South African Open in February.
There are 12 main PGA Tour events before the Masters on April 9-12, with four of them big events in which most of the field already will be eligible.
Woods did not play a tournament in 2025, first because of a ruptured Achilles tendon, and then because of a seventh back surgery. His recovery is close to allowing him to play and he's likely to be healthy enough before the Masters.
Gerard was at No. 57 in the world when he chose to go to Mauritius, a small island in the Indian Open, for a tournament co-sanctioned by the European tour and Sunshine Tour of South Africa. He needed to finish fourth and lost in a playoff to Jayden Schaper.
Si Woo Kim went to the Australian Open and finished third, giving him enough points to move into the top 50.
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AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
