Big-name defections signal beginning of the end for LIV Golf

Brooks Koepka finished in a tie for 56th in the Farmers Insurance Open on Sunday, which seems fitting.

Koepka famously never cared about such events, even when he was among the best golfers in the world. But it was meaningful that Koepka was in the Farmers Insurance Open at all.

The announcement in January that the five-time major winner was leaving LIV Golf to return to the PGA TOUR was intriguing for a couple of reasons.

First, how would the dozens of TOUR players who declined to jump to the Saudi-backed rebel league for a massive payday feel about Koepka returning after receiving little in the way of punishment? (He's forgoing equity in the PGA TOUR partner plan that was formed in response to LIV, but otherwise, it's like he never left.)

And secondly, would his departure from LIV signal a trickle of returning defectors, or a wave?

Koepka's peers, at least publicly, seemed fine with it. After all, LIV did force the PGA TOUR to revamp its business and greatly increase the money available to players. Plus, Koepka is well-liked. It's not like Patrick Reed was coming back.

Um, about that. Reed announced late in January that he, too, would bail on LIV and return to the PGA TOUR as soon as he is eligible, which could be later this season. This was Sauron joining the hobbits; Thanos becoming an Avenger; Darth Vader coming back to the Jedi. (Well, I guess that last one actually did happen.)

If there is such a thing as a pro golf villain, it's Reed. He's been accused of cheating on multiple occasions (and always denied it), he had an ugly falling out with his own family, and he sued a bunch of golf writers and broadcasters for defamation around the time of his jump to LIV. He didn't so much burn bridges as blast them into pieces.

But now he's returning. Bygones!

If Reed can come back, then anyone can come back. While the three star players the PGA TOUR has since tried to lure - Jon Rahm, Cam Smith and Bryson DeChambeau - have said they will stick with the Saudi tour for now, a swath of LIV players' contracts will be up after 2026 (including DeChambeau's). It would only take a few more departures to seriously undermine the Saudi project and bring its survival into question.

But LIV might be at that point already. No longer a new concept that needs time to grow, it's plainly obvious that it hasn't succeeded beyond making a few golfers extraordinarily rich. The television ratings are almost nonexistent in key markets, and its goofy team format has been a disaster.

The original business model imagined that once LIV became successful, "franchises" like the Fireballs and RangeGoats would be sold for vast sums to outside investors. That hasn't happened, partly because no one in the wider public cares about LIV's contrived teams and partly because the future of the LIV experiment has been uncertain since it announced a framework "deal" with the PGA TOUR almost three years ago that's gone nowhere.

Since the PGA and LIV announced that truce - which was perceived as the Saudis forcing the golf establishment to admit them to the sport's professional inner circle - LIV's benefactors have been sidelined while the PGA TOUR secured billions in funding from a group of U.S. sports owners.

Multiple PGA stars have since said they no longer think Saudi backing of the TOUR's business is necessary. Even a meeting early last year between U.S. President Donald Trump - whose courses have hosted LIV events - and executives from the TOUR and LIV failed to resolve golf's impasse. Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the Saudi official who is the breakaway league's greatest backer, reportedly took offense to what he felt was a lowball offer for LIV's assets.

One can reasonably respond: What assets? LIV begins its fifth competitive season this weekend and has reportedly burned through more than $5 billion so far without much of anything to show for it. LIV exists not because it has grown into a viable business, but because it remains propped up by a giant pile of money.

But even that might have a limit. LIV hasn't poached a PGA TOUR star since landing Rahm more than two years ago, and there's little to suggest it intends to offer the kind of nine-figure sums that once attracted golfers like Koepka and Dustin Johnson to bring in a new batch of talent.

The more pressing question is whether LIV can keep the players it already has. On the evidence of the past month, that'll be a huge challenge.

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.