The American Andy Ogletree has joined Phil Mickelson’s LIV Golf League team, HyFlyers GC, making it a full squad for 2024.
The 25-year-old won the Asian Tour’s International Series Order of Merit title in 2023, which earned him a full-time card on LIV. This came two years after he was kicked off the 54-hole circuit for coming last at its first event in London.
Ogletree didn’t have to win the Asian Tour championship in order to play LIV Golf. He had already earned enough points from a few games as a reserve to get into the “Open Zone” and start talking to a few teams. But the 2019 U.S. Amateur winner agreed to join Mickelson’s group after having a great season in many ways.
Brendan Steele, Cameron Tringale, and Ogletree are all from the same country and will be playing on the six-time Major champion’s team. Ogletree will be replacing James Piot, who was demoted last season and did not earn his way back to the League through the recent LIV Promotions event.
Mickelson said this about Ogletree in a statement: “Andy is one of the best young players in the game and has earned his spot on LIV.” He has kept up the hard work and resilience he showed last year as he built his own success, which was great to see. Andy makes the HyFlyers a strong team for next year, and more importantly, he gets along well with everyone on the team.
There are only four spots left on 13 of the sides with two months to go until the third season of LIV Golf starts. John Kaymer’s Cleeks GC has two open spots, Kevin Na’s Iron Heads GC has one, Cameron Smith’s Ripper GC has two open spots, and Jon Rahm’s team has not yet named any of the Spaniard’s partners.
Hey, Andy Ogletree! Welcome to HyFlyers GC! Twitter image: TWEHDpp80zNovember 18, 2023
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The former Georgia Tech player told Sports Illustrated that he was happy and glad to secure his spot early.
“I began to get calls, and it felt a bit like college recruiting all over again,” Ogletree said. A few teams wanted to get together, so I talked to some of the coaches, and things went from there. It took a few weeks of work to get everything done because LIV Golf owns the teams and had to accept the final contract.
Being able to travel with LIV throughout the year was a lucky break for me. I subbed in at all of the tournaments. I was seeing how each competition works, how the teams work together, and how they set up infrastructure to help them. It was easy to talk to different players and ask them a lot of questions. Additionally, I liked the way Phil did things, and the chance to learn from one of the best of all time was too good to pass up.
