{"id":609932,"date":"2026-04-16T04:19:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T04:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/609932\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T04:19:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T04:19:10","slug":"pga-tour-players-react-to-welcoming-back-defectors-cost-of-pga-return-where-it-all-went-wrong-for-liv-golf-best-social-media-reactions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/609932\/","title":{"rendered":"PGA Tour players react to welcoming back defectors, cost of PGA return, where it all went wrong for LIV Golf, best social media reactions"},"content":{"rendered":"

PGA Tour players and several of golf\u2019s most prominent voices have shared their views on the sport\u2019s next steps as well as where it all went wrong for LIV Golf following reports the breakaway league is facing imminent collapse<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Multiple reports have stated that the Saudi Public Investment Fund are strongly considering pulling their funding for LIV after releasing a five-year plan for the oil-rich kingdom\u2019s sovereign wealth fund that did not include the golf venture.<\/p>\n

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As a result, chaos has ensued in the golf world with Golf Channel reporting that some players are considering a boycott of this week\u2019s Mexico City, alleging they have not been paid.<\/p>\n

While, Golf Channel also reported that LIV CEO Scott O\u2019Neil, the former NBA executive who replaced Australian golf legend Greg Norman at the helm, told players and staff that the remainder of the season will be funded.<\/p>\n

Despite the exact next steps for LIV remaining unclear, there has been an abundance of discussion on what will happen to LIV\u2019s players if the league ceases to exist.<\/p>\n

LIV\u2019s biggest names Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau as well as Australia\u2019s Cameron Smith were offered an immediate return to the PGA Tour earlier this year because they won a major since the men\u2019s professional game was split in 2022.<\/p>\n

That was the opportunity that allowed Brooks Koepka to walk straight back to the PGA Tour – albeit with caveats including fines and limited entry into marquee events.<\/p>\n

Koepka was not on the initial entry list for this week\u2019s $20 million signature event, the RBC Heritage, but is set to earn a start as an alternate as Masters fatigue prompts players to drop out.<\/p>\n

Understandably given the breaking news about his former employers, Koepka was the only player to decline media requests on Wednesday at Harbour Town Golf Links in South Carolina.<\/p>\n

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The other path back to the PGA Tour that has been made available for LIV golfers is to serve a 12-month ban and earn back their tour card.<\/p>\n

That is what Patrick Reed is doing right now on the DP World Tour.<\/p>\n

The 2018 Masters champion will be eligible to play in PGA Tour events from August – 12 months after his last LIV start – and is one the most in-form players in the world this year.<\/p>\n

Reed has won twice this season in Dubai and Qatar, and has risen to 20th in the world rankings after having been outside the top 100 a year ago.<\/p>\n

The long-time villain has endeared himself to golf fans by swallowing his pride and doing things the hard way.<\/p>\n

It is exactly what former European Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley believes must happen to other LIV players if their league ends.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody who went to LIV, went with a huge amount of risk attached,\u201d he told Sky Sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey got paid a huge amount of money to take a massive risk, to leave behind the safety net, if you want to call it that, of the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Tour is a members organisation, remember. Not only were they going to LIV and getting paid a lot of money, they were harming the model that they left behind.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time they all justified it as a tough business decision and they made that decision looking out for themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, now, if this is the case, the roles would be reversed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Tour can play really hard ball back against them. They can say sorry guys, your spots have been filled and play hard ball in return.\u201d<\/p>\n

McGinley added: \u201cThe loyalty has to be to the guys who did not go to LIV, not the ones who did take that risk and obviously got paid a lot of money for doing so.\u201d<\/p>\n

The current PGA Tour contingent certainly feel the same way.<\/p>\n

A lot of players on the American establishment tour are disgruntled and fed up with the game\u2019s civil war.<\/p>\n

Plenty of them knocked back massive offers from LIV and would be outraged if others were essentially allowed to take the money and come back with little to no consequence.<\/p>\n

They are also sick of no resolutions being reached.<\/p>\n

A merger framework between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf was first announced back in 2023.<\/p>\n

Multiple deadlines have passed with no solutions reached.<\/p>\n

Early last year, speculation ramped up that it would finally be resolved as both sides held White House meetings with US President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

The players are wary that this may be another false dawn.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone deserves a place to play golf so it would be ridiculous to not allow them a place to play,\u201d six-time PGA Tour winner Max Homa told Golfweek<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cI just heard that rumour an hour-and-a-half ago so it would be a hard one for me to digest at this moment, which is why I am not Brian Rolapp. I don\u2019t know, I guess we got to find out if the rumour is even true. We\u2019ve heard a lot of untrue ones in the last three years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two-time major champion and Olympic gold medallist Xander Schauffele shared a similar sentiment to Homa, saying the players have been through all of this before.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of crazy to form an opinion based on all the rumours that are happening all the time between the two tours. I\u2019m not going to waste a whole lot of thought on it, you know what I mean?\u201d Schauffele said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure something concrete will come out of it if any of its true and if not everyone will just feel silly for thinking it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be hard to get everybody on the same page on how it should look depending on where you are in the world (ranking), the FedEx, if you\u2019ve won recently or you haven\u2019t and things of that nature,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I\u2019m sure the player directors and board members have been planning for it for quite some time just in case. I\u2019m as curious as you are, I can tell you that much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bryson DeChambeau and Xander Schauffele talk with their caddies and a rules official on the 13th green during the second round of the 2026 Masters.Source: AFP<\/p>\n

Wyndham Clark, the 2023 US Open champion, was one player that rejected LIV\u2019s advances.<\/p>\n

The American made clear that he would be uncomfortable with the defectors easily returning to the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you still technically have status you can play and if not you should have to earn your way back,\u201d Clark said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be interesting to see what they do. I hope there is at least something they do because a lot of guys had a chance to go and didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they can go make a bunch of money and come back, that\u2019s a bummer. At this point, I don\u2019t really care; I just want golf back and unified.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wyndham Clark and Brooks Koepka shake hands after the final round of the Masters.Source: AP<\/p>\n

While Michael Kim, the world No.44 who is a prominent voice on social media by offering fans valuable insights into professional life, shared his view that precedent must be followed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Tour has had different sets of rules for different players. The standard has been one year, right?\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know why it would be different for anybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fox Golf expert analyst Paul Gow believes the PGA Tour hierarchy will not be overly accommodating of many of the LIV players, but their hands may feel tied by the drawing power some of the LIV stars possess.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a path there and they will just have to rejig the path for how they like it,\u201d Gow told foxsports.com.au. <\/p>\n

\u201cCurrently, I think we can only go by what was set in place for Brooks Koepka, who was fined $5 million to get back in, with a 12 month suspension served. And Patrick Reed has done it a different way again on the DP Tour and it has still worked out for him perfectly.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it is purely up to the board, and that has Adam Scott and Tiger Woods in there, and I am sure they probably won\u2019t open their arms up to these players, but Bryson does move the needle. So does Jon Rahm. So does Cam Smith. There are a number of players – Joaquin Niemann – that turn the needle in the game and they should try to find a way for them to get back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bryson DeChambeau looks on from the 17th tee prior to LIV Golf Mexico City.Source: AFP<\/p>\n

If those big names do find their way back, Gow insists it will not take long before their names are once again at the top of PGA Tour leaderboards.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey will be able to sharpen up pretty smart,\u201d Gow told foxsports.com.au <\/p>\n

\u201cYou look at Koepka and the way he has strolled back into golf. He is playing some really good golf and if some putts had dropped, he probably would have won a tournament by now.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing that golfers are very good at is adapting. They adapt to different course, to different tournaments, different cities, different countries, different weather. You name it.<\/p>\n

\u201cGolfers are really good to adapting to what the situation is and I think that will be the case for these guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Golf Channel\u2019s<\/a> Eamon Lynch and Damon Hack dived into where it has all gone wrong for LIV.<\/p>\n

The prospect of the PIF pulling away their funding raised the question of whether any other benefactor would step in to carry the league forward.<\/p>\n

Lynch believes there is very little likelihood of that happening.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are billions of dollars in the hole. There is no prospect of any kind of traction here. There\u2019s no audience traction … there\u2019s no sponsors, it has no future,\u201d Lynch said. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo the idea that somebody else might go in on the assumption that these team franchises would be worth something is speculative.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greg Norman, South Australia’s Premier Peter Malinauskas, and LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil during LIV Adelaide.Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n

LIV has enjoyed successes with a bumper crowds in Adelaide for the past four years as well as in Johannesburg for its first South African event last month.<\/p>\n

But Lynch believes those big events have said less about LIV and more about the way the southern hemisphere nations have been treated by the golfing bodies for a long time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re trying to make a sports league solvent on the basis of selling tickets you\u2019re already losing,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a media rights business, and they don\u2019t have any. They\u2019ve literally given away their media rights for as long as they\u2019ve existed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll Adelaide and South Africa prove is where the rest of the golf tours have failed. They\u2019re golf desperate, golf hungry audiences that aren\u2019t being served.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cameron Smith of Ripper GC on the 12th during day one of LIV Adelaide 2026.Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n

Lynch\u2019s point about the media rights appears to be the key.<\/p>\n

LIV has regularly endured ratings struggles and failed to land blockbuster broadcast deals in its initial years.<\/p>\n

But while the PGA Tour is often ridiculed around the world for being too American centric, Hack believes LIV\u2019s failure to truly crack the American market has been a main reason for its inability to recoup losses.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe American audience never really bought in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe format. Shotgun start. Hard to follow. The team concept never really seemed to take hold – it wasn\u2019t a Ryder Cup or a Presidents Cup.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then the narrative has changed over the last couple months with Brooks coming back to the PGA Tour, Patrick Reed sitting in a packed room on the DP World Tour and saying everyone knows that the best tour is the PGA Tour.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of those unique aspects of LIV\u2019s product have been points of ridicule across the journey.<\/p>\n

Anti-LIV golf people have had a field day on social media in the aftermath of these reports.<\/p>\n

Former professional turned broadcaster Brandel Chamblee led the chorus with a scathing social media rant.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven that the product was so ill-conceived and ended up being worse than anyone could have imagined – with shotgun starts, initially 54 holes, a team concept that was nothing but laughable and tournaments that meant and continue to mean nothing, and such a paltry number of viewers, losing billions along the way – would it surprise anyone if the Saudis came to their corrupted senses and finally euthanized the whole lame-brained tour,\u201d Chamblee wrote.<\/p>\n

Many other reactions about LIV being a sinking ship are a lot more light-hearted.<\/p>\n

There is plenty more to play out in this situation, but for now, scroll down for the best social media reactions. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PGA Tour players and several of golf\u2019s most prominent voices have shared their views on the sport\u2019s next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[6074,2620,2095,255446,296501,296516,296508,1724,64,296502,63,689,264254,51854,108977,3193,2791,296220,31730,2490,5951,265538,294654,296509,42330,676,45891,2105,53230,755,296506,1745,296496,296520,296495,296504,24416,294651,60258,45884,296512,29457,31676,296511,296519,259496,296513,2184,23956,42326,296499,590,2041,2067,677,70796,9231,24805,216720,296503,296518,296515,16260,296517,296507,296494,121136,140465,2643,1314,296505,11972,1183,1124,8447,18780,296497,153918,85,296514,296500,296510,296498,180213,2614,12000,6959],"class_list":{"0":"post-609932","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-africa","9":"tag-agence-france-presse","10":"tag-america","11":"tag-american-audience","12":"tag-american-centric","13":"tag-american-establishment-tour","14":"tag-american-market","15":"tag-asia","16":"tag-au","17":"tag-audience-traction","18":"tag-australia","19":"tag-australia-and-new-zealand","20":"tag-australian-golf-legend","21":"tag-board-members","22":"tag-brandel-chamblee","23":"tag-cameron-smith","24":"tag-central-america","25":"tag-club-de-golf-chapultepec","26":"tag-doing-things","27":"tag-donald-trump","28":"tag-dubai","29":"tag-eamon-lynch","30":"tag-fairness-debate","31":"tag-fans-valuable-insights","32":"tag-fedex-corporation","33":"tag-final-round","34":"tag-gauteng","35":"tag-getty-images-inc","36":"tag-gold-medallist","37":"tag-golf","38":"tag-golf-ceo","39":"tag-golf-news","40":"tag-golf-people","41":"tag-golf-tours","42":"tag-golf-venture","43":"tag-golfing-bodies","44":"tag-greg-norman","45":"tag-ignited-fairness-storm","46":"tag-in-form-players","47":"tag-johannesburg","48":"tag-league-ends","49":"tag-marquee-events","50":"tag-max-homa","51":"tag-media-requests","52":"tag-media-rights-business","53":"tag-members-organisation","54":"tag-merger-framework","55":"tag-mexico","56":"tag-mexico-city","57":"tag-michael-kim","58":"tag-multiple-deadlines","59":"tag-nba","60":"tag-north-america","61":"tag-northern-america","62":"tag-oceania","63":"tag-patrick-reed","64":"tag-paul-mcginley","65":"tag-peter-malinauskas","66":"tag-player-directors","67":"tag-price-stars","68":"tag-prominent-voices","69":"tag-punishment-debate","70":"tag-qatar","71":"tag-ratings-struggles","72":"tag-rules-official","73":"tag-saudi-public-investment-fund","74":"tag-scott-oneil","75":"tag-signature-event","76":"tag-sky-sports","77":"tag-social-media","78":"tag-social-media-rant","79":"tag-social-media-reactions","80":"tag-south-africa","81":"tag-south-australia","82":"tag-south-carolina","83":"tag-southern-africa","84":"tag-southern-hemisphere-nations","85":"tag-sovereign-wealth-fund","86":"tag-sports","87":"tag-stunning-pay-claim","88":"tag-team-concept","89":"tag-team-franchises","90":"tag-tough-business-decision","91":"tag-tour-card","92":"tag-united-states-of-america","93":"tag-western-asia","94":"tag-wyndham-clark"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}