After Talor Gooch’s win at LIV Golf Adelaide, he was a guest on the 73rd Hole Podcast. In his interview, the 31-year-old shared some interesting information about his qualification status for this year’s U.S. Open.

Initially, Gooch had qualified for the 2023 U.S. Open by making it to the Tour Championship at East Lake for the season finale before joining LIV.

Despite not actually playing in the Tour Championship because of the indefinite suspension levied by the PGA Tour, Gooch’s play during the 2022 season earned him a spot.

“I was hopeful after Augusta came out and announced their field – they announced that I was in the field via my world ranking but also via qualifying for the Tour Championship,” said Gooch.

“Obviously, I was suspended from the tour and wasn’t able to play but my body of work for the season. up to being banned from the tour was good enough to get me into the Tour Championship.”

Gooch qualified for The Masters, which cited both his spot on OWGR and the fact that he qualified for the Tour Championship as hus qualifications for being in the field.

“I was glad that Augusta recognised that because, historically, up until this last year, if you make the Tour Championship, it gets you into The Masters, the US Open and the British Open.

“So when Augusta came out and made that decision, I was very optimistic that everybody else would follow suit.”

Despite the R&A honoring Gooch’s qualification, the USGA seemingly has not.

“The USGA decided to go in a different direction and retroactively changed that rule,” Gooch said. “Basically, the rule now within the USGA states that you have to qualify for the Tour Championship and also be eligible to play.”

“That was obviously disappointing because that changed rule only affected one person, which was me, so that was frustrating and tough because with LIV still not being rewarded with world ranking points, I have only two options to qualify for the US Open: via my world ranking, which is going to be very challenging, or trying to obviously go through the qualifying route of sectional qualifying.

“I’m hopeful that my ranking stays high enough for the next month that I get in. Time will tell on that.”

The PGA Championship has typically invited the top 100 players in the OWGR, so it seems likely that Gooch will be in. However, the criteria aren’t specifically stated as such.

After his win at LIV Golf Adelaide, Gooch dropped in the OWGR from 57th to 59th.

Article originally appeared on: Golfwrx.com