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The first International Series event of the year takes place this week in Oman and the event will have a slew of LIV Golf players competing a week before they are all scheduled to play consecutive tournaments in Jeddah and Hong Kong.
The International Series consists of 10 elevated events that are part of the Asian Tour and are funded by LIV Golf Investments. All will have a minimum purse of $2 million and the leader of the Order of Merit earns a fully exempt spot with LIV Golf next year.
Although not specifically laid out, several LIV players have clauses in their contracts to compete in International Series events, and it makes sense to play this one in a region of the world where LIV is already scheduled to play.
As of now, there are 21 LIV Golf players in the field, including Joaquin Niemann, who won the first LIV Golf event of the year two weeks ago and has been trying to qualify for the Masters via the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking.
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But even though the event is likely to give more than 15 ranking points to the winner, it’s unlikely a win would be enough to push him into the top 50. And even if it did, Niemann has points depreciating in the coming weeks. Niemann went into the weekend ranked 78th in the world.
Others from LIV in the field are Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel, Matthew Wolff, Peter Uihlein, Anirban Lahiri, Branden Grace, Dean Burmester and Matt Jones.
