Louis Oosthuizen dropped out of the world's top 50 for the first time since 2014 earlier in the month but he'll finish the year just inside to likely earn a Masters invite.
The South African, winner of the 2010 Open at St Andrews, headed home for the Alfred Dunhill Championship on the DP World Tour where a T7th finish was enough to move him back just inside the top 50.
Twitter Official World Golf Ranking guru 'Nosferatu' @VC606 described Oosthuizen's T7 finish as "crucial", with the LIV player set to finish outside of the world's top 50, instead of Daniel Berger, had he not had that result.
🚨BREAKINGTop 50 standings in the world rankings at the end of 2022 (week #52) are now known.@Louis57TM will finish the year at #50. His T7 finish last week at #DunhillChamps was crucial. Without that, Daniel Berger would have grabbed the 50th spot instead... #OWGR pic.twitter.com/NQdrakaLfeDecember 16, 2022
Oosthuizen's invitation to The Masters isn't guaranteed as it's officially an 'Invitational' tournament but invites historically go out to all of the world's top 50 players at the end of the prior year.
With the nine-time DP World Tour member being a LIV Golf player there may be some suspicions as to whether players from the Greg Norman-fronted league will be allowed to play, although there has been no indications of that at this time. Invites are set to be sent out in the coming weeks.
Oosthuizen will likely tee it up at Augusta National for the 15th consecutive year, where he'd be joined by past champions from LIV including Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed, Bubba Watson, Charl Schwartzel and Sergio Garcia.
Plenty of other LIV Golfers are qualified for upcoming Majors including Cameron Smith, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Joaquin Niemann and others. Other LIV players in the top 50, and likely heading for Augusta, include Kevin Na, Jason Kokrak, Harold Varner III and Talor Gooch.
Oosthuizen finished runner-up in the 2012 Masters, where he famously lost to Bubba Watson's incredible hooked wedge on the 10th hole in a playoff. The South African has finished runner-up in all four of the men's Majors.
His last victory on tour came at the 2018 South African Open.
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