What It Would Cost LIV Golfers to Go Back to the PGA Tour

Some players signed massive contracts to join the Saudi-backed league, but getting out of them wouldn't be easy.

When LIV Golf began last year, it loaded up its player lineup with major champions including Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and Bubba Watson.

Signing bonuses for those players and others were not disclosed, but the most lucrative are believed to be in excess of $100 million.

Upon teeing it up with LIV, players who had made their home on the PGA Tour were indefinitely suspended. None have expressed regret about their decision to leave or voiced a desire to return to the PGA Tour—which in the wake of LIV's birth has greatly increased purses for its top players and appears to be playing more no-cut events in the future.

But if anyone did want to go back? It apparently would be extremely costly.

SI's Alex Miceli reported that LIV contracts have a penalty clause that would require players to pay two, three or four times their signing bonuses in order to break agreements. Do the math: a contract with a $100 million signing bonus may cost $400 million to get out of.

Even as LIV players compete for $25 million purses at each event with $4 million individual first-place prizes, plus a $50 million team championship at season's end, one could see why that clause virtually assures there will be no early departures from the Saudi-backed league.