LIVing large: LIV Golf players in PGA bring a strong track record to season's second major

There will be 17 members of the LIV Golf League playing in this week’s PGA Championship at Oak Hill in Rochester, N.Y., beginning on Thursday.

That’s one less than the number who played in the season’s first major championship at the Masters in April. The difference is the withdrawal of Martin Kaymer, a past PGA champion who is eligible for the tournament indefinitely. Kaymer, oddly enough, said he wanted to be healthy for the two LIV events in America wrapped around the PGA, last week in Tulsa and next week near Washington D.C.

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Kaymer is coming off a wrist injury and told a LIV communications official he didn’t believe he could play three weeks in a row and didn’t want to play in a major unless he was in top form.

Among the LIV players in the field at Oak Hill will be two who combined to win three of the last five PGAs, Phil Mickelson and Brooks Koepka. Mickelson won at Kiawah Island in 2021 and Koepka won back-to-back in 2018 and 2019 at Bellerive and Bethpage.

The majors are critical for the LIV players, who currently only get world-ranking points for those events. Unless they are past champions, they’re going to be scrambling for strong finishes this week, at the U.S. Open in June and the British Open in July.

The LIV Golf contingent has a stout record in the PGA. The 17 players in the field have combined for 32 top-10 finishes and have made 100 of 131 cuts (76.3 percent).

In addition to the past PGA champions in the field (Mickelson and Koepka), four others have won other majors, Patrick Reed (Masters), Cameron Smith (British Open), Bryson DeChambeau (U.S. Open) and Dustin Johnson (Masters and U.S. Open).

LIV players in the PGA

• Abraham Ancer: Best finish, T8 in 2021; four of four cuts made.

• Dean Burmester: First appearance.

• Paul Casey: Best finish, T2 in 2020; 13 of 19 cuts made.

• Bryson DeChambeau: Best finish, T4 in 2020, three of five cuts made.

• Talor Gooch: Best finish, T20 in 2022; two of three cuts made.

• Dustin Johnson: Best finish, Solo second in 2019, nine of 13 cuts made.

• Sihwan Kim: First appearance.

• Brooks Koepka: Best finish, won in 2018 and 2019; 10 of 10 cuts made.

• Anirbarn Lahiri: Best finish, T5 in 2015; two of six cuts made.

• Phil Mickelson: Best finish, won in 2005 and 2021; 26 of 29 cuts made.

• Joaquin Niemann: Best finish, T23 in 2022; three of five cuts made.

• Mito Pereira: Best finish, T2 in 2022; one of one cuts made.

• Thomas Pieters: Best finish, T6 in 2018; six of seven cuts made.

• Patrick Reed: Best finish, T2 in 2017; seven of nine cuts made.

• Cameron Smith: Best finish, T13, 2022; six of seven cuts made.

• Brendan Steele: Best finish, T9 in 2022; six of nine cuts made

• Harold Varner III: Best finish, T29 in 2020; four of five cuts made.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: PGA Championship field will feature 17 members of LIV Golf League