SAN DIEGO \u2013 Brooks Koepka is poised to return from LIV Golf to the PGA Tour this week with wide support from those Tour members he left behind. That support is at least partially due to the nuanced policy that opened the door for Koepka and three other LIV players to return to the Tour.<\/p>\n
Under the circuit\u2019s Returning Member Program, Koepka \u2013 along with Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and Cam Smith \u2013 have a narrow window to return to the circuit (the deadline is Feb. 2) but they aren\u2019t eligible for the signature events, a FedExCup playoff bonus or player equity this year. The program also called for expanded fields in events that Koepka plays to alleviate potential conflict.<\/p>\n
Not only is Koepka not taking a spot from anyone at events he plays, his presence adds spots to the field with two players already enjoying the benefits of the program.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing on the [Player Advisory Council] two years ago there was talk about letting a certain number of [LIV] guys back in. They wanted Brooks, obviously Jon Rahm, I get it, this is a business,\u201d Lanto Griffin said. \u201cNow we got to the point where Brooks wanted to come back and, I wasn\u2019t on the PAC last year, so I had no idea this was a rule.\u201d<\/p>\n
Griffin was playing a practice round on Sunday at Mission Viejo Country Club, the site of Monday\u2019s open qualifier for the Farmers Insurance Open, when Harry Higgs told him about the field additions.<\/p>\n
At the time, Griffin was the fifth alternate for the Farmers Insurance Open and figured he had a \u201c5 percent chance of getting in\u201d if he didn\u2019t Monday qualify. But the field adjustment dramatically improved that number.<\/p>\n
On Monday morning, Griffin texted a Tour official and he was informed that if Koepka was signed up to play Torrey Pines at noon the field would expand to accommodate an extra threesome. Griffin also texted Ricky Elliott, Koepka\u2019s caddie, to confirm the five-time major champion was playing, which essentially allowed Griffin to skip the Monday qualifier and focus on this week\u2019s event.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is my favorite golf tournament, favorite course, I love it and I\u2019ve played well here so I was pretty bummed when I played awful in the fall and I knew it would be close [to getting into the Farmers Insurance Open],\u201d he said. \u201cTo the Tour\u2019s credit, they could have just added one guy [Koepka] but I think it\u2019s a good move for the players and the fans who might have an issue with him coming back. I don\u2019t have any issue with him, I\u2019ve always been a Brooks fan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Griffin, who has played the San Diego-area event seven times and missed just a single cut at Torrey Pines, and Jackson Suber were both added to the field at Torrey Pines when Koepka committed.<\/p>\n
Perhaps even more interesting was the revelation that the Tour, at least via the PAC, began formulating a policy that would allow certain LIV players back as early as the summer of 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do we get the guys we need back without letting everybody back. This [program] has been in the works,\u201d Griffin said. \u201cEarly in the year the idea was we didn\u2019t want any of them back, [but] the conversation had started to change to, maybe we\u2019ll take some of them [LIV players] back.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN DIEGO \u2013 Brooks Koepka is poised to return from LIV Golf to the PGA Tour this week…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-437719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}