There will be 86 spots available for the 2026 Masters, and players who finish the 2025 calendar year within the top 50 of the Official World Golf Rankings will earn an invitation to the first major championship of the 2026 season. A total of 13 players used the passageway to secure tee times at Augusta National Golf Club in early April, and Ryan Gerrard started in the 11th hour to finish runner-up at the DP World Tour’s AfraAsia Bank Mauritius Open.
Gerrard started the week in 57th place in the OWGR, but after losing in the play-offs he moved up to 46th place and joined the rest of the pack to qualify for Augusta National. He needed at least a fourth place finish to accumulate the necessary points. According to the predictions for week 52 of the world rankings, Sam Stevens will be last in the rankings at No. 50, just ahead of Canada’s Taylor Pendrith, who will be the last out.
Players to earn Masters invitations (Week 51 rankings)
11 | alex noren | 4 |
twenty three | aaron rye | 1 |
31 | Christopher Reitan | 0 |
32 | Max Glaserman | 1 |
34 | michael brennan | 0 |
36 | michael kim | 2 |
38 | Sami Valimaki | 0 |
40 | Rasmus Højgaard | 1 |
43 | difficult | 4 |
46 | ryan gerard | 0 |
47 | Toriri | 8 |
48 | Johnny Keefer | 0 |
50 | sam stevens | 0 |
Augusta National has changed its invitation criteria for the 2026 Masters to no longer include the winner of the FedEx Cup fall tournament. For Michael Brennan and Sami Valimaki, this ultimately didn’t matter, but the remaining PGA Tour Fall Series winners (who have not yet earned their spots) have had no such luck.
In place of these winners, invitations were given to national open champions from around the world. Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen won the Australian Open, Tom McKibbin won the Hong Kong Open and Marco Penzi won the Spanish Open to qualify.
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Brennan skyrocketed up the OWGR board rating thanks to his play on the PGA Tour Americas and victory at the Bank of Utah Championship, earning him a full-time spot on the PGA Tour. He was scheduled to compete on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2026 before his win — Kiefer had that circuit in place in 2025 and finished inside the OWGR top 50.
Both of these players will be making their Masters debut, but Kim Si-woo is the most experienced player to earn an invitation through the world rankings by finishing in the top five at the Australian Open. When Kim hits the ground running at Augusta National in April, it will be his ninth start in the tournament.
The 86 players still include Tiger Woods, who will turn 50 before the calendar flips to 2026. The 15-time major champion did not play in any tournaments in 2025 due to a torn Achilles tendon and seventh hip surgery. He said at the Hero World Challenge that his recovery was taking longer than expected and that he was recently allowed to chip and putt.
