{"id":522188,"date":"2026-04-09T21:49:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T21:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/522188\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T21:49:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T21:49:10","slug":"masters-2026-tom-watson-criticises-pga-tour-for-allowing-return-of-koepka-and-reed-from-liv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/522188\/","title":{"rendered":"Masters 2026: Tom Watson criticises PGA Tour for allowing return of Koepka and Reed from LIV"},"content":{"rendered":"

Koepka, 35, has been welcomed back to the PGA Tour after applying for reinstatement <\/a>under a new ‘Returning Member Programme’, facilitated for those who had won a major – or The Players Championship – since 2022.<\/p>\n

The five-time major champion also smoothed his return by paying fines said to be worth around \u00a363m.<\/p>\n

Reed, who won the Masters in 2018, did not match the same criteria for reinstatement as Koepka and cannot regain his membership until January 2027.<\/p>\n

However, he will be eligible to play on the PGA Tour again this coming August, a year after his final LIV appearance.<\/p>\n

Watson claims the PGA Tour has “made a decision to renege” on what they promised to those who stayed loyal.<\/p>\n

“When the players left, they violated the number one rule, which is to protect the sponsors,” said the 1977 and 1981 Masters champion.<\/p>\n

“Sponsors need players. They need the names to be able to promote their tournaments.<\/p>\n

“When the players left for LIV, I think it was basically over. <\/p>\n

“They chose to go for the money, which is fine. To return to the Tour, I thought, was a nonstarter. Apparently it’s not.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Koepka, 35, has been welcomed back to the PGA Tour after applying for reinstatement under a new ‘Returning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522189,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[59,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-522188","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}