Ogilvy Says LIV Ban Cost Internationals Smith, Niemann, Herbert

International Presidents Cup captain Geoff Ogilvy said this week that he has asked the PGA Tour about including LIV Golf players on his team every year since taking the job, and that the answer has not changed ahead of the matches at Medinah Country Club from Sept. 24-27. The PGA Tour owns the Presidents Cup and has barred LIV players from it since 2022.

What has Ogilvy said about LIV players and his roster?

"I asked it a few times. I asked it two years ago when this job started," Ogilvy said, describing his repeated requests to have LIV players considered. He raised the issue again last year and again this month. The Tour's response, as he described it, was that it was "not going to be no chance," but that officials would have to see how things unfolded. Nothing has unfolded far enough to change the policy.

Ogilvy said the International side has been hurt harder by the ban than the U.S. team, noting that predecessor Trevor Immelman lost three or four likely 2022 team members a month before that Presidents Cup. He called LIV's future "a great unknown" as the league has weighed its own financial restructuring.

Which players has the ban cost the International team?

Cameron Smith, Lucas Herbert and Joaquín Niemann are the players most often cited as ones Ogilvy could not select because of their LIV status. Marc Leishman and Elvis Smylie are among other Australians on LIV who are similarly ineligible, narrowing the pool of a country that has historically anchored the International side.

A third of the deepest golf-playing nation on the International side is barred from the one event that could use it.

Why can't the Presidents Cup do what the Ryder Cup did?

The PGA Tour owns the Presidents Cup outright and has denied LIV golfers the chance to qualify or be selected since 2022. The Ryder Cup is different: it is co-owned by the PGA of America and the European side, and European LIV members such as Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton have kept a path to that event through their DP World Tour membership. An Australian or Asian player on LIV has no equivalent route, because the only team event open to him is run by the tour he left. Patrick Reed, notably, is eligible for PGA Tour events again after serving a year-long suspension following his LIV departure.

Ogilvy's team assembles at Medinah later this month looking to end a run of 10 straight American wins, and its last, in 1998.