Ryan Gerard’s 10,000-mile journey paid off Sunday when he finished runner-up in Mauritius, securing a Masters invitation by climbing into the top 50 of the Official World Golf Ranking. He joins 13 other players who qualified through the year-end rankings.
That brings the likely Masters field to 86 players, including Tiger Woods, who hasn’t yet announced if he’ll tee it up in April.
While the final 2025 world ranking won’t be published for another week, there are no remaining tournaments affecting the top 50. The OWGR has already projected that Sam Stevens will finish at No. 50, narrowly edging out Canada’s Taylor Pendrith.
Alex Noren is the highest-ranked player (No. 11) who wasn’t previously eligible. His two wins in England, including the prestigious BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, propelled him up the rankings.
Several fall tournament winners secured their spots through strong performances that boosted their ranking positions:
- Kristoffer Reitan (Norway) – Nedbank Golf Challenge
- Michael Kim – French Open
- Sami Valimaki (Finland) – RSM Classic
- Michael Brennan – Utah Championship
Others joining the Masters field through the top-50 ranking are Aaron Rai, Max Greyserman, Rasmus Hojgaard, Min Woo Lee, Si Woo Kim and Johnny Keefer.
Michael Brennan and Johnny Keefer took particularly unusual paths to Augusta National. Brennan spent most of 2025 on the PGA Tour Americas circuit, two steps below the main tour. He won three times there with nine other top-10 finishes before receiving a sponsor exemption to the Bank of Utah Championship—which he promptly won to vault into the top 50.
Keefer earned his spot through the Korn Ferry Tour, where his two victories generated enough ranking points to barely hold onto a top-50 position.
The Masters adjusted its qualification criteria this year, replacing FedExCup Fall event invitations with spots for winners of select national opens worldwide. Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen (Danish) qualified by winning the Australian Open, while Marco Penge captured the Spanish Open and LIV Golf’s Tom McKibbin won the Hong Kong Open to earn their invitations.
Augusta National has maintained a field under 100 players since 1966, and that tradition appears likely to continue. Two more 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 remaining before the Masters (April 9-12), though four are signature events where most competitors are already qualified.
As for Tiger Woods, he didn’t play a tournament in 2025, first sidelined by a ruptured Achilles tendon and then by his seventh back surgery. His recovery seems to be progressing well enough that he’s likely to be healthy before the Masters begins.
Gerard was ranked 57th worldwide when he made the long trip to Mauritius, a small island in the Indian Ocean, for a tournament co-sanctioned by the European tour and Sunshine Tour of South Africa. He needed to finish fourth and nearly won, losing in a playoff to Jayden Schaper but gaining enough points to crack the top 50.
Si Woo Kim took a similar approach, traveling to the Australian Open where he finished third, giving him just enough points to secure his Masters invitation.
