ATLANTA (AP) — PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp offered a path back to a small number of LIV Golf players at the start of the year with a tight deadline to accept it and a warning that “once the door closes, there is no promise that this path will be available again.”
It's a hot topic now that the LIV Golf League is done with its shortened season. The speculation is just starting to ramp up on which players might be wanting back, Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau chief among them.
Brooks Koepka mutually ended his contract with LIV Golf when he left at the end of 2025, and that would be a starting point now.
“Anyone who’s interested in coming to the PGA Tour needs to demonstrate that they are relieved of their contractual commitments or any tail obligations they might have in that legacy model,” Rolapp said Tuesday. “Brooks certainly did that, and until then, we weren’t really able to consider anything seriously. I would say the same thing here.”
Any path back does not sound like a smooth one. Along with preaching meritocracy, Rolapp brought up rules that applied to the players who bolted for LIV Golf with big signing bonuses. LIV players typically have been banned from PGA Tour-sanctioned events for one year from the time of their last LIV appearance.
“The tour is a membership organization. It has rules. Those rules exist for lots of reasons — for fair, competitive reasons,” Rolapp said.
“Rules only matter if they’re enforced,” he said. “So accountability and discipline are essential to any organization, and certainly for the integrity of the tour and for the game, especially in a game that prides itself on rules and integrity.”
