Brooks Koepka Is a Reminder That at LIV Golf, It’s Every Man for Himself

The most shocking thing about Brooks Koepka’s PGA Tour return isn’t that he’s been welcomed back, writes Michael Rosenberg, but that LIV Golf let him walk. Now the breakaway tour’s future is very much in doubt.

Brooks Koepka will return to the PGA Tour later this month. | Bill Streicher/Imagn Images

Brooks Koepka just chose between two golf tours. I remember the good old days when he didn’t even want one. The PGA Tour will welcome Koepka back with open arms and a hand on his wallet, and that’s the headline here, but it’s not the most important part of the story.

This is:

One of LIV Golf’s biggest stars wanted to return to the PGA Tour, and LIV let him.

Forget all of LIV’s bluster. Ignore the spin. LIV is starting to concede the match. Look at the facts:

In December 2023, as the target date for completing the PGA Tour-LIV merger loomed, LIV Golf bankroller Yasir Al-Rumayyan fired a $300 million warning shot. He signed No. 1-ranked Jon Rahm. This time, Koepka asked to leave, and LIV let him.

LIV’s most popular player, Bryson DeChambeau, said last June that his contract expires after the 2026 season. He also said “We’re looking to negotiate [at the] end of this year, and I’m very excited.” The year ended. DeChambeau has not announced a deal. Nobody has implied one is imminent.

LIV made a big deal of expanding its events from 54 holes to 72. But as of Tuesday morning, the tour had only announced the site of 12 of its 14 events in 2026. LIV also trumped its TV deal with Fox, but Puck reported that Fox is paying a “modest” rights fee, with LIV covering production costs. LIV ratings are still abysmal.

Koepka said he asked out of his contract because he wanted to spend more time with his family; his wife, Jena, recently had a miscarriage, and they have a 2-year-old son. His request is both understandable and admirable.

But LIV CEO Scott O’Neil could have offered Koepka a leave of absence. Instead, O’Neil let Koepka leave a tour with 14 events to join one where he will likely play more. Koepka committed to 15 PGA Tour events this year; that includes four majors, but does not include signature events or the FedEx Cup playoffs if he qualifies. 

Within a few months of Koepka’s defection to LIV, there were rumblings that he regretted it. Again: I do not question his priorities. But LIV has known for years that Koepka was a flight risk. He probably paid an exit fee to leave, but so what? Al-Rumayyan spent billions of dollars to build LIV’s credibility. He just let Koepka damage it for a fraction as much money. 

So now what happens?

Well, give the Tour’s policy board credit for moving swiftly and wisely to bring Koepka back. When he applied for reinstatement, the Tour’s policy board created a Returning Member Program for players who left for LIV and have won a major or the Players Championship since 2022. Only four players qualify: Koepka, DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Cam Smith. The Returning Member Program will expire Feb. 2, a date that was surely chosen to apply pressure to those three. The Tour’s new CEO, Brian Rolapp, released a statement in which he called the program “a one-time, defined window [that] does not set a precedent for future situations.”

It sounds like a take-it-or-leave-it offer. The Tour just gave Rahm, DeChambeau and Smith three weeks to follow the man that Tiger Woods (and only Tiger Woods) calls Brooksie. 

LIV Golf’s uncertain future

So what happens from here?

I don’t think I’m being hyperbolic here: If Al-Rumayyan lets DeChambeau and Rahm out of their contracts, his next step would be folding the league. LIV has a tiny audience with those two. Without them, LIV isn’t even a tour. It’s a really expensive golf trip.

Rahm is unlikely to be the next domino. Between Rahm’s LIV contract and his on-course earnings, LIV is believed to have paid him almost $400 million. He also signed with LIV 18 months after Koepka did, so there is a pretty strong chance his contract expires later as well. So his exit fee would surely be higher than Koepka’s—but because LIV has paid him more than it paid Koepka, the Tour would presumably expect its penalty for Rahm to be higher, too. Rahm would therefore be giving up a lot more money than Koepka did.

It would be hard for everybody to make the numbers work in three weeks, and anyway, Rahm has minimal incentive to leave now. He is making a ton of money. He is exempt from the Masters for the rest of his career, the U.S. Open until 2031, and the British Open and PGA for the next two years.

DeChambeau’s star has risen in recent years, but he reportedly has not signed an extension with LIV Golf. | Aaron Doster-Imagn Images

Then there is DeChambeau. He has become LIV’s biggest promoter and its most valued employee. Some LIV golfers have struggled to go from irrelevant events to majors, but DeChambeau has thrived. So DeChambeau has minimal incentive to leave now, too … 

But DeChambeau has said his contract is almost up. He has also said he wants to sign another.

DeChambeau’s future is LIV’s future. If LIV signs him to an extension, we will know that letting Koepka leave was truly a one-off choice. 

But if DeChambeau goes back to the PGA Tour, LIV collapses. Oh, it might continue to exist in some form for a little while. But the battle would be over.

Now this is where it gets really entertaining:

All of LIV’s top players are making far more than their market value. That’s why they left for LIV in the first place. Yet DeChambeau is a much bigger star now than he was when he signed. So he is surely angling for a raise. 

Al-Rumayyan created an economic bubble, and now he is trapped in it. He doesn’t really have any good options. If he wants to keep playing the long game, he needs to keep DeChambeau. To keep DeChambeau, he probably needs to throw an absurd amount of money at him. But if Al-Rumayyan keeps overpaying by hundreds of millions, the long game becomes unwinnable—and if he signs DeChambeau to an extension, he has to re-up with a bunch of other players, too.

Folding would make more economic sense than anything else LIV has done. But it would also require Al-Rumayyan to swallow a lot of pride. Three years ago, LIV negotiated a deal that would have made him chairman of PGA Tour Enterprises and given him a seat on the Tour’s board of directors. That deal has been dead for a long time. But is Al-Rumayyan willing to just fold and get nothing out of it?

We’ll see.

But Al-Rumayyan has already started to fold.

Brooks is back. Bryson looms. LIV Golf touts its team format, but it’s every man for himself, and it always was.

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