{"id":548416,"date":"2026-04-24T14:34:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T14:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/548416\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T14:34:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T14:34:19","slug":"ian-poulter-blasts-pga-tour-but-has-a-plan-to-end-liv-feud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/548416\/","title":{"rendered":"Ian Poulter blasts PGA Tour \u2013 but has a plan to end LIV feud"},"content":{"rendered":"

LIV golfers who had won one of the four majors or the Players Championship since 2022 were allowed to return to the PGA Tour this winter if they agreed to certain conditions and penalties. Brooks Koepka was the only LIV player to take advantage of the hastily-arranged program, with the eligible Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and Cam Smith preferring to remain in their contracts. <\/p>\n

In return for immediate reinstatement to his old domain, Koepka received a $5 million fine to charitable causes<\/a> and was unable to earn FedEx Cup bonus money or to accept sponsor invites to Signature Events this year. He also cannot access equity in the new PGA Tour Enterprises for five years.<\/p>\n

Tiger Woods, who helped orchestrate Koepka\u2019s return<\/a> with the power he now wields in the PGA Tour\u2019s boardroom, was unapologetic about the open invitation to only a handful of LIV\u2019s biggest stars.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not going to satisfy every player,\u201d Woods said in January. \u201cThis plan was created for a very select few players that met the criteria. You know the names.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Poulter, who insists there is \u201cstill a big fight\u201d ongoing between the rival circuits, took a dim view of the PGA Tour\u2019s scheme during an appearance on the Rough Cut<\/a> podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat did they really open up?\u201d the Englishman said. \u201cThey gave an opportunity to four players and four players only. That\u2019s not really opening up. You\u2019ll only take back players \u2013 Brooks, five majors, Cam Smith, who\u2019s won The Players Championship and the Open Championship. You would take back Bryson DeChambeau, and you gave the opportunity to Jon Rahm. F*** everyone else. We just wanted the biggest four assets that we can nick back from LIV and we don\u2019t want any of you lot.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow does that look? I don\u2019t think it looks very good. It\u2019s a mercenary way to turn around to say we\u2019ll just scoop a load of your assets back or try to scoop a load of them back. There\u2019s a still a fight. That\u2019s a hostile offer in my opinion. It\u2019s not a full open, let\u2019s get the guys come back and play. This is, \u2018We\u2019ll work a way to have you guys come back to benefit us.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ian<\/p>\n

Poulter believes the newly-devised Player Equity Program on the PGA Tour \u2013 created through a $1.5 billion investment from the Strategic Sports Group \u2013 has shifted the dynamic on the circuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow there is a full profit business for the PGA Tour and there is a share option to the members who have been allocated share positions to a certain value depending who you are,\u201d he said. \u201cEvery player, even though some are going to say we don\u2019t want them back, if they take back two or three players their share option becomes more valuable. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re doing it for their back pocket. It\u2019s still messy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poulter was then asked if there was any way LIV and the PGA Tour could assimilate to end the division.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s an opportunity to have two or three more teams in LIV,\u201d he replied \u201cWhy couldn\u2019t they be PGA Tour teams? Why couldn\u2019t you give 12 players \u2013 the top 12 or the 12 who want to play a certain number of events? The PGA Tour are shortening the schedule. They need to monetise their business as soon as possible. Brian Rolapp has said the TV deal is up for negotiation. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey want to reduce some of the tournaments. They want those events to be big events so everyone can play the same events. The investment made into the PGA Tour \u2013 they want this thing to make money. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of stress and pressure to the PGA Tour for them to make this make money. I don\u2019t have the perfect fix but we could take in three more teams so surely there\u2019s a bit of give and take on both sides to a point to go, surely there\u2019s space for 12 guys-\u00a0 not just four \u2013 to be able to play in a chunk of tournaments on the PGA Tour.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LIV golfers who had won one of the four majors or the Players Championship since 2022 were allowed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-548416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548416","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=548416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}