So Brooks Koepka is back on the PGA Tour. And the door is open for Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and Cameron Smith to do likewise.
Unless you’ve just stepped off a 14-hour flight without WiFi, this won’t come as news since it’s already by far the most widely discussed topic in professional golf since the Ryder Cup. It’s also perhaps the biggest development in LIV/PGA Tour relations since the overhyped/underdelivered meeting in the Oval Office with the U.S. President last year, which is kind of ironic since LIV aren’t actually involved directly.
This is solely a PGA Tour move, and a clear declaration that, after Brooks, there are only three LIV players that they’re really interested in having back by setting criteria that excludes anybody who hasn’t won a major or The Players Championship since 2022.
Since LIV only started in 2022, it made it easy to use 2022 as a starting point, but conveniently, that also eliminated Phil Mickelson from the conversation. Not that Mickelson would have any intent on returning, of course, but it would’ve given him another chance to give the PGA Tour a one-fingered salute and his track record over the past four years suggests he’d have taken delight in doing so.
Of the trio that the offer remains open to, Rahm and Bryson are the obvious marquee names, but as a winner of both a major and The Players in 2022 – and since the PGA Tour treats The Players like a major – Cam Smith had to be included. The 2022 version of the Aussie is one you’d definitely like back, but not so much the current edition who missed the cut in seven of the eight OWGR-counting events he played outside of LIV in 2025.
And by setting a February 2 deadline, it’s setting up an exciting next few weeks unless the trio pour cold water on the situation by pledging their allegiance to LIV quickly.
Rahm, according to Spanish website Ten Golf, has already done exactly that, but as the most recent LIV signing of the three and with the longest existing contract – and the most lucrative contract to boot – the financial repercussions for leaving LIV alone would be severe. And, on top of that, the financial penalty Koepka is being hit with is not small potatoes, even if the five-year forfeiture of PGA Tour Enterprises equity and the potential $50-85 million that could cost is a high-end estimate.
In short, leaving LIV to avail of the Returning Member Program would likely cost Rahm upwards of $200 million, and having spent the last two years defending his decision to jump ship, would be an open admission that he’d made a big mistake in moving.
It’s also hard to see Smith making a return.
While his recent form doesn’t mirror that of his pre-LIV or even early LIV days – his last win anywhere came in August, 2023 – on the surface at least, he’s happy on LIV. He gets to play several times a year in his native Australia both on LIV and on the DP World Tour, is captain of Ripper GC which has an entirely Australian roster, and he’s exempt into all four majors for the next two seasons and into the Open Championship for the next 28 years.
Which leaves Bryson. And maybe this was the PGA Tour’s intent all along.
Bryson, like Koepka, was contracted until the end of the 2026 season, and has been in contract negotiations with LIV for a while now, and if Koepka leaving left Bryson in a stronger bargaining position, the PGA Tour opening the door for a return has strengthened his hand immensely. This puts LIV back in the situation where perhaps the only way to solve a problem is to throw heaps of money at it.
After the initial big-money signings LIV made, there was always going to come a time when those contracts were up for renewal, and I’m sure they were bargaining on having a much stronger bargaining position than the one they currently have.
There can be little doubt that the League hasn’t grown at the rate they’d have hoped, hasn’t captured the public’s imagination in the way they’d foreseen, and hasn’t weakened the PGA Tour in the way they’d envisioned. We didn’t need Brooks Koepka leaving LIV and returning to the PGA Tour to tell us that, but it surely removes all lingering doubts.
By opening the door for the aforementioned trio alongside Koepka, the PGA Tour is also effectively registering its apathy for the rest of the LIV roster. Sure, Joaquin Niemann, Tyrrell Hatton, and Dustin Johnson are players who generate interest, but not sufficient interest to warrant an olive branch.
If DeChambeau follows Koepka back to the PGA Tour, then LIV’s credibility as a top-tier tour is all but gone. If he stays, then it will because LIV have broken the bank to secure his services. Neither is an enticing prospect for LIV given the venture’s already lopsided balance sheets, and a recent New York Times report which suggests that the Public Investment Fund’s coffers aren’t quite as full as they once were and that significant belt-tightening is likely following several projects that are in financial distress. And that makes it a win-win situation for the PGA Tour.
While the PGA Tour may have fumbled the ball initially when the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund started making advances into professional golf, this latest move could prove to be a strategic masterstroke.
Time will tell, but February 2 is already looming large.
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