ANY notion that players lured away by the Saudi Arabia riches of LIV Golf would never return to the PGA Tour doesn’t hold much water these days. Five months from now, there could be as many as five ex-LIV players teeing it up at the season opener in California.
Brooks Koepka was the first to return, and that didn’t go the way he had hoped. He played 16 times and looked like a five-time major champion until his caddie handed him the putter. Koepka failed to reach the postseason at No. 94 in the FedEx Cup, a performance he described as “pathetic.”
Patrick Reed, who decided not to renew with LIV a week before it began the 2026 season, is leading the Race to Dubai on the European tour and is a lock to be among the leading 10 players not already exempt to get PGA Tour cards for 2027.
“I always saw myself wanting to start and finish my career on the PGA Tour,” Reed said. He will be playing the Nexo Championship next week in Scotland for a $3-million purse. Even one of the lesser “Challenger Series” events in the new tour schedule will feel like an upgrade.
Others currently among the leading 10 are Eugenio Chacarra, Bernd Wiesberger and Shaun Norris. All of them were part of LIV Golf when the rival league launched in 2022, and all have been away from LIV long enough to return without penalty (and without equity).
The PGA Tour has a full plate as it tries to shore up a revamped schedule for 2028 and to create a postseason format that finally puts some meaning into the word “playoffs.”
Brian Rolapp, one year into his role as CEO of the PGA Tour, has never spent much time talking about LIV Golf because there’s no need, especially now. Rolapp saying in a Bloomberg News interview that there was “no merger, no conversations with LIV Golf,” somehow made news. The framework agreement got rid of the lawsuits. That was key.
But creating a path back will need to be added to the plate at some point.
The renegade league is in survival mode without Saudi funding, and while it is leaning into the concept of “LIV 2.0” with the promise of a lead investor, the numbers don’t make sense. The Public Investment Fund spent more than $5 billion in five years, much of that to attract stars who went over to LIV because of the money.