PGA Tour not contemplating path back for LIV players similar to Brooks Koepka

CEO Brian Rolapp said Tuesday the PGA Tour is not considering a path back for LIV Golf players like the program it offered Brooks Koepka and three other top players at the start of the year.

LIV's future has never been more murky after the rival circuit filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week as it plots a new model no longer bankrolled by the Saudi Arabia sovereign wealth fund. Still to be determined is how many players stick around for the less lucrative “LIV 2.0.”

The other part of the equation is where else they would go.

Koepka got out of the last year of his LIV contract and was offered a path back to the PGA Tour through the “returning member program.” Rolapp then offered that to Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and Cameron Smith — all major champions since 2022 when LIV launched — and gave them a three-week deadline to accept with no guarantee it would be offered again.

“In terms of where we are today, we are not currently contemplating a returning member program like the one you saw in January,” Rolapp said on a conference call to discuss the eligibility for the new competition model on the PGA Tour that starts in 2028.

“Everyone at the PGA Tour, myself included, has been focused on what is best for the organization.”

Rolapp has leaned into meritocracy in the new model, making players earn their place. Koepka, along with the other players offered a return, had five-year exemptions from winning majors.

Koepka was required to pay $5 million to charity, and he had no access to player equity grants for five years. He also was not eligible for any of the $20 million signature events unless he qualified for them through his play. Koepka failed to get into any of those tournaments, and he did not qualify for the PGA Tour's postseason.

Rahm has been elusive when it comes to his plans. He has one year left on the contract he signed ahead of the 2024 LIV season and now that contract is in doubt because of the Chapter 11 filing.

“There's a long legal process they have to go through before a lot of things fall into place,” Rahm said Tuesday at the BMW PGA Championship on the European tour. “I really can't give you an answer right now. ... Until this current season is done, I really won't be able to give you an answer.”

Rolapp has been guided by making the PGA Tour the ultimate destination in golf, and the two-tier system that includes a Championship Series with stronger fields and higher purses makes it the most attractive place to be.

The likes of Rahm and DeChambeau are two of the biggest pieces missing if golf wants to patch itself together after such a disruptive time brought on by LIV. Rolapp also has to respect his players who watched their peers chase Saudi riches that caused the disruption.

Rolapp said in June when he revealed the bones of the new model, "We do have to account for whatever lingering discipline is left, or rules that have been broken. There’s scar tissue, and that has to be accounted for. That’s not to say we’re going to be punitive, it’s just that we’re a membership organization of rules.”

At least two players who were with LIV are in position to return by earning 10 tour cards available through the European tour — Patrick Reed, who leads the Race to Dubai, and Eugenio Chacarra, who is No. 3 on the list. Both have been out of LIV for more than a year, so the tour's one-year ban has expired. Bernd Wiesberger of Austria also is in position to get a card.

The PGA Tour has not said how many cards it would offer the European tour going forward. They are still negotiating an alliance that provided those cards, and that could be a path back for European tour members like Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton.

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