Should LIV Golf’s Bryson DeChambeau be Olympic-eligible? Nope

When putting together the four golfers who will represent the United States in the Summer Olympics in Paris next month, technically it doesn’t matter if a golfer is playing on the PGA Tour, the LIV Tour, the DP World Tour or your local mini-tour events. The politics of the game at the moment don’t involve the International Olympic Committee or the International Golf Federation.

But if that is true, how could U.S. Open winner and PGA Championship runner-up Bryson DeChambeau not be on the U.S. team?

The answer is simple, but with a complicated backstory.

Indeed, DeChambeau will not be representing the United States in Paris. Instead, the four Americans will be Scottie Scheffler, Patrick Cantlay, defending gold medalist from the Tokyo Games Xander Schauffele and 2023 U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark.

Those are the top four Americans in the latest Official World Golf Rankings, and the rankings this week determine which golfers will be part of the 60-player field in the Summer Olympics. One thing to remember is that no country is allowed more than four players on a team, thus allowing for more countries to be represented in the Games.

Here’s where the politics come into play. DeChambeau is the fifth American in the OWGR, even though he is 10th overall. But DeChambeau has only earned ranking points in three tournaments this year — the Masters, the PGA Championship and the U.S. Open. He only earned points in the four majors in 2023. That’s because DeChambeau can’t play in PGA Tour events because he’s playing instead on the LIV Tour.

Never had the points

LIV Tour events don’t award any OWGR points for players, something that has been true since the start of LIV in 2022. The OWGR folks have significant issues with how the LIV Tour fields are populated, how a player can qualify for that tour and how a player is kicked out of events when other players have been brought in to play. LIV golf officials have repeatedly decried the lack of ranking points, but LIV players never had a promise that such points were coming to their tour despite their protests. Nothing has changed in that regard.

So DeChambeau, suddenly a wildly popular player who inspired chants of “USA! USA! USA” at the U.S. Open last week, is out of the Olympics even though it’s easy to say he could easily replace Clark or even Cantlay on Team USA.

More: Bryson DeChambeau says ‘it’s disappointing’ he’s not on USA Olympic golf team after U.S. Open win

Whether that is fair or…