When – not if – the inevitable end of LIV Golf arrives, whether it’s when the Saudi money spigot turns off later this year or after a stubborn attempt to keep going to prove the doubters and haters wrong, the golf landscape won’t go back to the way it was before the great disruption occurred.
Scars linger.
No matter how eagerly the new proprietors of LIV Golf try to spin their fragile reality now that the Saudi billions have finally run out, it seems destined to have been a great and grand failure. It lined the pockets of many but it has not made professional golf better.
Only different and only for a time.
What happens next may be the only question that matters to those who drive the sport – the devoted who carry their clubs on daily-fee courses, weekend golfers with a lifetime of stories to tell and the fans who are on a first-name basis with players they’ve never seen play in person.
It’s not what happens to Fireballs GC or HyFlyers GC. It’s whether Jon Rahm is coming back to the PGA Tour and what about Bryson DeChambeau? Are Tyrrell Hatton and Cameron Smith coming back to the tour? What about the fortysomethings, like Charles Howell III, Graeme McDowell and Paul Casey?
Unraveling the past isn’t as easy as turning the page.
Brooks Koepka came back from LIV this year but paid a substantial price, making a $5 million donation to charity, sacrificing five years of equity accumulation in the tour and having to play his way into the signature events. Koepka has been embraced by the tour brotherhood, who never seemed angry at him for the decision he made.
Patrick Reed is on the way back, accepting a one-year suspension from the PGA Tour while likely earning his 2027 tour card via his play on the DP World Tour this year. Reed has never been the tour’s most popular player but he has earned some respect for going about his return the way he is.
It won’t be as easy for some others.
“I don’t necessarily have scar tissue, but there are plenty of people around our tour who do. It has to be accounted for in some shape or form.”
Brian Rolapp, to the Wall Street Journal
DeChambeau, who has positioned himself to be a free agent when his LIV contract expires after this season, is saying the right things about supporting the next iteration of LIV but he’s exploring his options. His rumored $500 million asking price to re-sign with LIV is one more miscalculation.
Among the problems DeChambeau faces if he wants to return to the PGA Tour is he was one of 11 players who sued the tour in 2022, adding his name to an antitrust suit that included Phil Mickelson and Ian Poulter, among others. He sued his peers, a bad look all around.
“You can’t forget about that,” Jordan Spieth said at the RBC Heritage two weeks ago.
When the question of how to handle the potential return of the tour’s expats was asked last week at the Cadillac Championship, Spieth was unsure.
“I’m not sure if it should be the same for everyone. I know olive branches were given out a couple months ago. Brooks took ’em up on it. So I’m not sure what would now change,” Spieth said.
As tour CEO Brian Rolapp has settled into his role, it sounds as though one of his key learnings is the animosity that remains from what happened when LIV arrived.
“I don’t necessarily have scar tissue, but there are plenty of people around our tour who do,” Rolapp said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “It has to be accounted for in some shape or form.”
In addition to Koepka, the PGA Tour offered Rahm, DeChambeau and Smith a path back with the Returning Member Program. Koepka took it, the others did not.
Brooks Koepka paid a substantial price to return to the PGA Tour.
CHRIS GRAYTHEN, GETTY IMAGES
The circumstances have changed since the Feb. 2 deadline for accepting the offer passed. The PGA Tour has more leverage now than it did earlier this year and should use it. Rolapp’s job is to help the tour present its best possible product but he is also beholden to the tour’s membership, some of whom have long memories.
Accommodating Rahm, if that door opens again, should come at a high price. Rahm may have thought his decision to take a reported $300 million payday from the Saudis would force the two sides to make a deal. In retrospect, it may have had the opposite effect.
It fueled the PGA Tour to solidify its new signature event model and squeeze sponsors for more money while LIV Golf believed it had its north star.
If Rahm is reluctant to accept the DP World Tour’s offer to remain eligible for the 2027 Ryder Cup – he’s apparently hung up on the tour telling him two of the six events he must play – how might he react to a list of requirements to rejoin the PGA Tour, which would likely start by making him wait at least one year since he never officially resigned his tour membership.
Maybe Rahm makes peace with the DP World Tour and plays there again.
For others, the potential path back is difficult. Harold Varner III has no PGA Tour status now. Talor Gooch dominated LIV for a time but he will be starting over.
Older players can see Pat Perez preparing to join PGA Tour Champions once his one-year penalty is served. Would Poulter, who turned 50 in January, get the same deal? Will Casey in two years?
[LIV Golf] intends to fight on, if it somehow finds the money, but if it couldn’t make it work with what felt like all the money in the world, why will it work now?
It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who said, “Money often costs too much.”
LIV Golf is proof of that. Trying to buy a place in golf’s pyramid hasn’t worked. Billions of dollars couldn’t wash the human-rights stain off the Saudi government, despite ongoing efforts to modernize their society.
The PGA Tour survived – call it a victory if you want – but it came with its own cost. Money seemed to matter more than anything else, at least until there was so much that the top players could routinely skip the richest events. Fans noticed and not in a good way.
LIV Golf has found pockets of success in Australia and South Africa but it never captured American hearts or television sets. It intends to fight on, if it somehow finds the money, but if it couldn’t make it work with what felt like all the money in the world, why will it work now?
And what happens next?
Top: LIV Golf’s demise would put the future in doubt for Jon Rahm (left) and Bryson DeChambeau.
JOE ROBBINS, ICON SPORTSWIRE VIA GETTY IMAGES
