The 2016 Masters champion from England, Danny Willett, was one of six athletes to obtain full exempt status for the 2022–2023 PGA Tour season due to fresh defections to the LIV Golf Series.
The British Open champion and world number two, Cameron Smith of Australia, along with five other players, were given indefinite suspensions by the PGA on Friday after they teed off in their inaugural LIV Golf event at Boston.
Six spaces at the bottom of the top 125 on the eligibility list for the upcoming season—which starts in two weeks at Napa, California—were made available by those expulsions.
From positions 120 to 125, Matt Wallace of England, Austin Smotherman, Justin Lower, Doc Redman, Willett, and Kelly Kraft of the United States moved on.
The six players’ new status guarantees that they will have spots in the PGA Tour Players Championship for the upcoming season for those who had previously narrowly missed out.
Other golfers that switched from the PGA to LIV Golf this week included Joaquin Niemann of Chile, Marc Leishman of Australia, Anirban Lahiri of India, Harold Varner III of the United States, and Cameron Tringale of the United States.