Tom Watson Says PGA Tour ‘Reneged’ on Promise to Ban LIV Golfers

AUGUSTA — Tom Watson took part in the ceremonial start to the Masters on Thursday morning by hitting a drive off the first hole along with fellow legends Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player.

Then the two-time Masters winner teed off on LIV Golf.

Watson, 76, was asked a question about Brooks Koepka’s return to the PGA Tour this year after playing with the LIV Golf League for the last four years.

The eight-time major winner believes that the money paid up front to LIV players should have been enough and that their return to the PGA Tour should have been more difficult.

“The Tour made a decision to renege on what they promised when the players left for LIV,” Watson said during a news conference along with Nicklaus and Player. “They felt that the compensation that he’s paid is good enough.”

Koepka is back via what the PGA Tour called a Returning Member Program, which was only offered to players who had won major championships from 2022 to 2025, meaning it only was meant for him, Cam Smith, Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau.

Part of the program required him to pay a $5 million fine that went to various charities and prevents him from accepting sponsor invites to signature events. He also is precluded from the player equity program for five years.

“I thought the LIV players, when they left, they were supposed to be banned for life,” Watson said. “If I was commissioner, that’s what I would do. I’d say if you’re finished with your contract with LIV Golf, if you want to play the PGA Tour again, you come back, and you must play the Korn Ferry Tour for a year to qualify for it.

“They saw it differently. When the players left, they violated the number one rule that we really had out here, which is to protect the sponsors. Sponsors need players. They need the names to be able to promote their tournaments. If the players play wherever they want to play without a conflicting-event rule, where you had to seek the permission of the PGA Tour to play in a tournament opposite of a PGA Tour tournament, the sponsors would be hurt by that. I think we all understood that.

“When the players left for LIV, I think it was basically over. They chose to go for the money, which is fine, but to return to the Tour, I thought, was a nonstarter, but apparently it’s not.”

Those who play LIV Golf are prohibited from competing in PGA Tour events. Even non-members are subject to a one-year ban from the time of their last LIV event.

Patrick Reed, who won the Masters in 2018 and also left LIV Golf earlier this year, is subject to a different program that will allow him to play again in the fall as a non-member. He cannot regain his membership—which for now would only include status as a past champion—until January.

Patrick Reed tees off on the third hole during a practice round for the Masters — Patrick Reed left LIV Golf earlier this year and is playing his way back to the PGA Tour. | Bill Streicher-Imagn Images

But Reed has won twice this year on the DP World Tour and leads the Race to Dubai points list. If he finishes among the top 10 players not otherwise exempt for the PGA Tour—a virtual certainty at this point—he will earn full PGA Tour status for 2027.

Watson won the Masters in 1977 and 1981. He also won the British Open five times as well as one U.S. Open. He made 43 starts at the Masters, beginning in 1970 and ending in 2016, with 15 top-10 finishes.

He joined Nicklaus and Player as an honorary starter in 2022.

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