How should the PGA Tour react to Brooks Koepka’s application to rejoin its lucrative and prestigious circuit of tournaments?
Within days of leaving the breakaway LIV Golf League, the five-time major champion signalled his intention to switch back to the leading establishment tour by reapplying for membership on 9 January.
Koepka, 35, left LIV one year early, wanting to spend more time with his family. But the Floridian, who remains eligible for all four majors courtesy of his 2023 US PGA Championship victory, is clearly keen to rejoin the tour he dramatically left four years ago.
And for the PGA Tour this provides a huge dilemma.
Koepka is the past decade’s most prolific winner of men’s majors and an attractive draw for sponsors, television and fans alike.
Such appeal brought a gargantuan signing on fee from the Saudi Arabia-backed LIV organisation and his 2022 departure was a hammer blow for the PGA Tour.
Of course they would love to have him back and readmitting Koepka would help the established order administer a painful retaliatory jab that could set up a potential knockout blow to the disrupting upstarts.
By welcoming back someone with two US Opens and three US PGAs to his name, the PGA Tour might provide an encouraging return path for other stars such as Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm when they near the end of their LIV contracts.
“Does it make sense if Brooks wanted to play the PGA Tour again to get him back as soon as possible? Absolutely,” Masters champion Rory McIlroy recently told the Palm Beach Post.
“What Brooks has done in the game of golf, it would be good for everyone to have him back.”
But McIlroy added: “You can’t treat one person differently from how you treat others.”
They would be ignoring precedent and effectively employing different rules for those of superstar status.
“To allow Brooks to come back with no consequence would undermine the meritocratic foundations that are the one thing that makes the PGA Tour legitimate,” said Golf Channel pundit Brandel Chamblee.
The former tour player has been a consistent and outspoken critic of the LIV project. “Forgiveness without cost is not reconciliation, it’s erasure,” Chamblee said.
Koepka is now embarking on a “reinstatement and disciplinary process” and while the PGA Tour does not comment on matters of discipline, it is promising “thoughtful input from the board, including player directors”.
The tour will no doubt recall how Hudson Swafford was dealt with.
The 38-year-old American was among LIV’s first recruits in 2022 but was struck down by injury and upon leaving the breakaway circuit reapplied to the PGA Tour in late 2024.
Swafford, a three-time tour winner who is currently working in real estate, was given one-year bans for each of the five LIV events he played in 2022 that conflicted with regular PGA Tour events. He cannot play on the PGA Tour again until 2027.
He was also part of a legal action taken by LIV colleagues who sought a restraining order that would allow them to play the 2022 PGA Tour play-offs.
Those who sued during that febrile and fractious period generated considerable anger among PGA Tour players, who felt money that belonged to them as members was being channelled into the pockets of lawyers instead.
Ironically, the lucrative arrival of LIV prompted a huge increase in prize money among the old order as well as $1.5bn investment from the Strategic Sports Group and the formation of the for-profit PGA Tour Enterprises.
Successful tour members now have ownership in the new company with 213 PGA Tour players sharing various amounts from $1.3bn in equity grants. It could be argued that Koepka and co have done them all a big financial favour.
“I really don’t think there is any backlash now,” Swafford told Sports Illustrated. “Everyone has moved on. Players play where they want to play and make decisions in their best interest.
“And especially when you see how much money the PGA Tour is playing for now.”
Speaking at a recent indoor TGL event, Billy Horschel concurred. “Selfishly, having an equity stake in the PGA Tour now, bringing Brooks back, that does add value,” said the US star.
“So I think there needs to be a process to figure out what brings these guys back.”
Koepka took no legal action against the tour when he left and was always reticent to join LIV’s outspoken stance against the golfing establishment. He never sported LIV branding during his time with LIV’s Smash team as he became the first player to register five victories on the circuit.
He also sought to retain relationships with former PGA Tour colleagues, playing for the US in the 2023 Ryder Cup and sharing an eyebrow-raising practice round with McIlroy at the Masters that year, when golf wars were at their most intense.
Perhaps the most likely scenario is Koepka will serve a one-year ban from the last time he played a LIV event, which was in August last year. He could accept invitations to play on the European-based DP World Tour in that period.
That was the sanction for England’s Laurie Canter, who competed in the 2025 Players Championship after being denied PGA Tour access for the 12 months that followed his initial LIV departure.
Canter has now re-signed for LIV. Their current recruitment strategy involves players from lower echelons compared with the superstar signings that accompanied their entrance into the pro golf market.
But unlike Koepka, Canter was not previously a PGA Tour member so it is questionable as to whether his case provides a true precedent.
It is a delicate situation at a time when much change is promised by the Brian Rolapp-led PGA Tour. The new chief executive is promising hard-nosed business leadership and has appointed Tiger Woods to chair their Future Competitions Committee.
They want a model where the world’s best play with each other more regularly and -despite missing three major cuts last year – Koepka could still fit the bill.
So along with coming up with a new more impactful schedule, Koepka has given the committee plenty more to ponder.
