Rory McIlroy takes a pop at LIV Golf as the league’s biggest names seek to return to the PGA Tour…

Rory McIlroy will not be avidly tuning into Brooks Koepka’s return to the PGA Tour this week.

“Maybe if you’d asked me five years ago, I’d have said yes,” the Masters champion admitted to reporters at the Hero Dubai Desert Classic on Sunday. “But I’ve got too much or enough going on in my life to worry about other players at this point.”

So McIlroy might not be on Koepka Watch like the rest of us as the five-time major champion tees it up in his first PGA Tour event since 2022 on Thursday at the Farmers Insurance Open.

But what will interest the Northern Irishman is how Koepka’s exit from LIV Golf may have shifted the landscape during this ongoing civil war with the established circuits.

After a quick dash from Dubai to Florida for TGL action on Monday, McIlroy was quizzed on what Koepka’s U-turn meant for the PGA Tour.

“I think it says more about Brooks than anything else,” he said, following his Boston Common side’s 9-1 thrashing of The Bay Golf Club at the SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens.

“He obviously is a very competitive person and wants to compete at the highest level. I think he made the decision that he thought competing at the highest level meant coming back to the PGA Tour.”

Koepka remains the only high-profile player to make his way back from LIV and it is unlikely Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm or Cameron Smith will return under the same conditions of the Returning Members Program.

But before his victory in Dubai on Sunday, Patrick Reed caused a stir when he too would consider a return to the PGA Tour if the same offer was extended to the 2018 Masters champion.

Reed then stoked further intrigue in his winner’s press conference at Emirates Golf Club, where he revealed he is technically still a free-agent because he is yet to renew his LIV contract for 2026, before announcing three days later that he had decided not to return to the 4Aces.

McIlroy, who was speaking between Reed’s post-tournament interview and his decision to leave LIV Golf, added: “You’ve seen others say this recently. Patrick Reed said it in Dubai last week. It seems like some of those guys are maybe starting to realize that they’re not getting everything that they wanted out of going over there, and that’s obviously a great thing for the PGA Tour.”

Reed had said he would be surprised if he is not at LIV’s season-opener under the lights in Riyadh next week. But when asked what his options would be if he was not a LIV player this season, the American revealed he could play an entire season on the DP World Tour and try to earn his PGA Tour card back by claiming one of the 10 cards offered to non-exempt pros in the Race to Dubai standings. He has now opted to do just that.