Brooks Koepka moved to LIV Golf for the money and he returns to the PGA Tour where prize purses have doubled in his absence. He has emerged from golf’s civil war smelling the roses.
When LIV Golf came onto the scene in 2022, the PGA Tour – who have made nothing but knee-jerk reactions to the Saudi Tour’s advances – began pulling millions upon millions of dollars out of thin air to persuade their biggest stars to stay. It mostly worked, now one of the pillars they lost has returned.
Koepka isn’t quite the prodigal son but his “punishment” isn’t really a punishment at all. New PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp plucked this new returning member programme from nowhere just to coax Koepka back after he had left LIV Golf before Christmas. Where he came up with the $85 million in equity that Koepka will apparently forfeit as he is ineligible to earn money from the player equity scheme from 2026-2030 is anyone’s guess. Koepka is also ineligible from earning any FedEx Cup bonus money, something he has not earned yet while his $5m charitable donation for returning to the PGA Tour will most likely be taken from his taxes.
On paper he has been punished, in reality he has been welcomed back with open arms. The door was open for Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Cameron Smith via this return scheme which ends on February 2nd, but they declined. Rolapp said it was a one time thing, but he had to say it to prompt an immediate reaction. It will come about next year and the year after.
Smith doesn’t really give the impression that he is too fussed about returning to the PGA Tour. It might be time to accept that the boat on his career has sailed and that our 2022 champion golfer of the year with the world at his feet and surely a stint at world number one, has wasted his talent.
Rahm and DeChambeau however have vowed to honour their contracts. That leaves the window wide open for them to be poached if not in the next fortnight then in the next one to two years. LIV has been rocked, they are on the back foot. They haven’t signed a big name player in quite a while and losing Koepka won’t do their prospects of poaching more PGA Tour talent any favours.
Bryson and Rahm might feel within their rights to demand astronomical amounts of money to sign on with LIV who could resort to desperate measures to protect their horcruxes – love a Harry Potter reference. Lose those two and the tour dies.
Koepka returns a five-time major winner, one of which was won while with LIV in 2023, but he was never really LIV’s boy. He was never in the same realm as Bryson, Joaquin Niemann, Smith or even Rahm who himself took a while to settle. The American coming back to the PGA Tour makes sense for him and men’s golf as a whole.
While I don’t fully agree that Koepka should have been allowed back to the PGA Tour without serving a one-year suspension, we have to admit that in sport you have to accept that your superstars are going to be treated differently. Some players will agree with his ban being lifted, you can guess the handful of players who while players below the top level might feel irked by these developments.
But Koepka’s return is a huge coup for men’s professional golf. Of the players who are still relevant at the top of the game, Koepka stands alongside Rory McIlroy with five majors and one ahead of Scottie Scheffler’s four. He is one of the pillars of the sport whether you like him or not.
The DP World Tour’s Dubai Invitational begins on Thursday and new world number three Tommy Fleetwood spoke about trying to put up a challenge to Scheffler and McIlroy who are comfortably the top two in the world. We all love Tommy but he’s just a level below that.
If Koepka can get back to his best form he is the one who can reach those heights. We could have golf’s big three. The latest to be billboarded as this next box office rivalry in the post Tiger era. But we must not forget that Koepka won all five of his majors during McIlroy’s major drought while Scheffler still only had one.
Outside of Tiger Woods, he was the top dog in golf’s flagship events in the modern era.
Koepka will face pressure, criticism and probably some hostility on the fairways from some of his playing partners. But if he can get his mind and body in the right shape, he’d be the type of guy to rise to it and bring out his best golf.
Welcome home Brooks, you’ve left Graeme McDowell broken hearted.
Leave a comment