Jon Rahm & 6 LIV Golf Stars Enter $9M Scottish Open — Here's Why It's Allowed

The Field Nobody Expected

The Genesis Scottish Open tees off Thursday, July 9 at the Renaissance Club with a $9 million purse on the line — and a field that includes seven LIV Golf players. Jon Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton, David Puig, Laurie Canter, Tom McKibbin, Adrian Meronk, and Victor Perez are all in the mix, playing alongside PGA Tour regulars.

If that seems off to you, you're not alone. The PGA Tour has barred LIV Golf players from its events since the Saudi-backed league launched, part of an ongoing standoff that's reshaped professional golf. So how are these guys walking straight onto the tee sheet?

The Loophole: It's Not a PGA Tour Event

Here's the actual answer, and it's simpler than the drama suggests. The Genesis Scottish Open isn't a PGA Tour-owned tournament. It's co-sanctioned by the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour (formerly the European Tour), meaning members of either tour are eligible to play — regardless of PGA Tour membership status.

Rahm and several of the other LIV players named still hold DP World Tour cards, either through past performance, membership requirements, or special exemptions. Since the DP World Tour hasn't imposed the same blanket ban on LIV players that the PGA Tour has, those golfers can enter co-sanctioned events like the Scottish Open without needing PGA Tour clearance at all.

Why This Keeps Happening

This isn't a one-off quirk — it's a structural gap in the PGA Tour's ban. Co-sanctioned events (the Scottish Open, the Dunhill Links, and others tied to the DP World Tour) sit outside the PGA Tour's sole authority, so LIV players with active European Tour status can slip through legally. It's become one of the few reliable windows for LIV golfers to compete against top PGA Tour talent outside the major championships, where all pros are eligible regardless of tour affiliation.

What It Means for the Bigger Picture

The presence of Rahm and company at the Renaissance Club is also a preview of sorts — a rare glimpse of what a unified leaderboard could look like if the PGA Tour and LIV ever reach a formal merger agreement, talks that have dragged on for years without resolution. Until then, expect these co-sanctioned events to remain the go-to meeting ground for the sport's split talent pool.

For fans, it means big names you might not expect to see together are sharing a leaderboard this week — and a genuinely loaded field heading into the Open Championship later this month.