While Brooks Koepka’s return to the PGA Tour from LIV Golf was a hot topic last week, the Saudi breakaway league announced a contract extension with Koepka’s one-time workout buddy, two-time major champion Dustin Johnson.
Johnson, 41, will return as captain of the 4Aces GC team under a multi-year extension, the league announced. The team also signed Thomas Detry, the 33-year-old Belgian player who won the PGA Tour’s 2025 WM Phoenix Open.
Meanwhile, another PGA Tour player of note, Byeong Hun An, signed with LIV Golf as captain of the rebranded Korean Golf Club. An, 34, never won on the PGA Tour but scored five runner-up finishes and earned more than $21 million over the past decade. He won the 2009 U.S. Amateur at age 17.
Finally, former LIV Golf competitor Pat Perez, a three-time PGA Tour winner, has been reinstated as a tour member, though he is not eligible to compete in tour-affiliated tournaments at this time, Sports Illustrated first reported. Perez, 50, wants to play on PGA Tour Champions, the report said. READ MORE
“I’ve got a lot of work to do with some of the players. There’s definitely guys who are happy, and definitely guys who will be angry. It’s a harsh punishment financially. I understand exactly why the tour did that – it’s meant to hurt. But [my PGA Tour departure] hurt a lot of people. If anyone is upset, I need to rebuild those relationships.”
Brooks Koepka (above right, with Dustin Johnson), on his return to the PGA Tour
Speaking to ESPN in advance of a TGL match involving his Jupiter Links team last Tuesday, Tiger Woods applauded Koepka’s PGA Tour return while acknowledging that the timing of his own return to competition following October back surgery remains uncertain.
“Whenever that time comes when I start hitting drivers and I start playing at home and start doing all the different things, I will have been away from the game for a year and a half,” Woods said. “So I will be very rusty. And so there’s a lot that goes into it, so my prep is going to have to be a little bit different from my other procedures I’ve had in the past. I’ve had to stay a lot more patient with myself. I get sore faster, I guess because I’m 50. And that happens.”
Woods last competed in a PGA Tour event at the Open Championship in July 2024. READ MORE
Several of the world’s top-ranked players have entered the PGA Tour’s American Express tournament in La Quinta, California, this week.
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler is among eight of the top 13 players in the Official World Golf Ranking who will tee it up at the Pete Dye Stadium Course and two nearby layouts starting Thursday. The field will also include No. 5 Russell Henley, No. 7 Robert MacIntyre, No. 8 Ben Griffin, No. 10 Justin Rose, No. 11 Harris English, No. 12 Sepp Straka and No. 13 Alex Norén. Straka is the defending champion. READ MORE
Tap-Ins
The PGA Tour announced changes to both FedEx Cup points distributions and payouts for 2026 in order to give a more complete representation of a player’s performance across a full season. The winners of the FedEx St. Jude Championship and BMW Championship will receive 750 FedEx Cup points (down from 2,000), matching the distribution used for the Players and major championships. READ MORE
PGA Championship director Ryan Ogle is leaving the PGA of America, he announced Friday via social media, just four months before the championship at Aronimink Golf Club. READ MORE
Golf Channel and the DP World Tour have announced an extension of their media rights agreement through 2030, under which Golf Channel will present live coverage of all DP World Tour events each year. READ MORE
Compiled by Mike Cullity
