Talor Gooch makes a fool of himself with his Masters comments

By "some of the best players in the world," Gooch means LIV Golf players, right? The best players on the PGA Tour are locked in for the Masters because they receive Official World Golf Ranking points, but LIV golfers don't on the rival tour. 

Well, LIV's Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Cameron Smith, Sergio Garcia, Phil Mickelson, Patrick Reed and Charl Schwartzel will be in the field thanks to previous major championship wins.

Tyrrell Hatton and Adrian Meronk are also in thanks to their finishes to the 2023 season. Even Joaquin Niemann, who wasn't able to qualify himself, received a special invitation from Augusta National because he made multiple starts on OWGR-sanctioned tours outside of LIV and won on the DP World Tour in December. 

By our count, that's 12 players from LIV Golf competing in this year's Masters, or 22% of the league. So, Gooch can't be referencing LIV as a whole being shut out from the Masters. He must mean himself specifically. Let's break that down, shall we?

Gooch doesn't have a major championship win on his resume. In fact, he has only one top-15 finish and four missed cuts in 11 major starts. He could've punched his ticket with a top-12 finish at the 2023 Masters or a top-four finish at either the 2023 PGA Championship or the 2023 Open Championship. He finished T34 at Augusta and missed the cut at the other two majors. 

Gooch could've followed the Niemann route by dabbling in OWGR-sanctioned events in the offseason. Instead, he made one start on the DP World Tour and withdrew after two rounds. He also made one start on the Asian Tour and finished T42, 12 shots behind World No. 250 Ben Campbell. 

The 32-year-old has played well on LIV. He won three times in 2023 and captured the individual title, and he finished T2 at the most recent tournament in Las Vegas. But, according to Gooch's own comments, don't his LIV victories all have asterisks because the best players in the world weren't competing?

The same could be said about his lone PGA Tour win, at the 2021 RSM Classic. McIlroy, Rahm, Viktor Hovland, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth and a host of other top players weren't in the field that week. They were, though, at the three major championships Gooch played in last season, and he didn't come close to contending in any of them.

Three wins on an exhibition tour and tens of millions of dollars have turned Gooch into an arrogant, entitled golfer. Is the OWGR being unfair by not awarding points to LIV? Yes, but Gooch topped out at No. 31 in the world before ditching the PGA Tour.

Gooch hasn't proved anything to put him in the same tier as the best golfers in the world, and no one will miss him at Augusta National this year.