As of last week<\/a>, Patrick Reed is on his way, too. The 2018 Masters champion announced his official departure from LIV, and will regain eligibility at the end of the summer. The tour\u2019s doors are now swinging open for former LIV golfers with deep competitive resumes.<\/p>\nBut amidst all of this talk about the business of the tour, the players\u2019 viewpoint has been lost. A simple belief is now resurfacing: Competition matters.<\/p>\n
At the end of their careers, a top PGA Tour player will see a number of wins posted next to his name. He\u2019ll want that number to mean everything it meant before the Saudi-backed league came onto the scene and poached very capable talent from the circuit.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just want to play against the best players. You want to beat the best players. You want to be proud at the end of a tournament that you beat the guys that maybe you struggle to ever beat,\u201d Max Homa says.<\/p>\n
Out of LIV\u2019s 57-player roster, only a handful of names can make a meaningful and consistent competitive impact. Three of them \u2014 Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and Cameron Smith \u2014 were already offered lifelines back to the tour. However, they did not accept the deal by Rolapp\u2019s Feb. 2 deadline, and are playing in LIV Golf\u2019s event in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, this week. Others may one day follow Reed and seek PGA Tour reinstatement after serving a suspension.<\/p>\n
In even providing the pathway, the tour signaled that those players are a welcome addition. Without them, the tour is missing something. Rewind to two or three years ago, and it was taboo to admit that LIV dampened the PGA Tour product or limited its potential.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully more guys (come back to the PGA Tour),\u201d Homa said. \u201cI feel robbed as a golf fan of Rahm vs. Scottie. I feel like that would have been a semi-weekly thing. I\u2019m happy someone started the reunion.\u201d<\/p>\n
If anyone were to be upset by the PGA Tour\u2019s decision to let LIV golfers return, it would naturally be the players \u2014 especially those who had LIV offers and remained loyal to the tour. Could they have done things differently? Would they have?<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it just makes the products, the fields better,\u201d says Viktor Hovland. \u201cHowever, it does kind of put the tour in a tricky position now. You\u2019ve said one thing for a long time, and now we\u2019re changing things. What precedent are you setting for future players if I can go to a rival tour, get paid, and now seemingly come back again without the biggest consequences?\u201d<\/p>\n
The general understanding is that such a scenario isn\u2019t a realistic concern. The PGA Tour has the ball in its court now. Welcoming back defectors only strengthens the PGA Tour\u2019s value in its upcoming media rights negotiation. Most players \u2014 even those who think Koepka and Reed\u2019s financial penalties aren\u2019t steep enough \u2014 on balance see this move as a positive.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s their money, it\u2019s not like it\u2019s going in my pocket,\u201d Homa said. \u201cWe honestly got paid so much more money because of this whole thing. I don\u2019t care. I just want everybody to be back.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Travis](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-2259408940-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n Travis Kelce played nine holes with Brooks Koepka during Wednesday\u2019s pro-am at the WM Phoenix Open. (Justin Edmonds \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Fowler, orange garb and all, is a marketer\u2019s dream. That also made him one of LIV Golf\u2019s biggest targets. Of all the players who were offered a spot, Fowler, 37 now, was candid about the temptation to leave. But Fowler stayed, and Homa did too \u2014 each fighting through slumps and winless droughts that would have made anyone wonder about playing for guaranteed money. For them, there wasn\u2019t a number. Elite competition is a top priority for all of these high-level players. The idea that it wasn\u2019t only took hold when LIV started waving nine-figure contracts.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs time\u2019s gone on, we\u2019ve all just realized that some people have a different outlook on how they want to go about their career,\u201d Homa says. \u201cI never judged people for leaving. I didn\u2019t like how some people bashed the tour on the way out, and lied about how it\u2019s not about the money.\u201d<\/p>\n
The PGA Tour is in a very different place now, compared to when Koepka first defected. The membership is smaller, purses are bigger, and overall, it\u2019s a much better place for the stars, with the new signature event model, FedEx Cup bonuses and player equity. Strong competition is valued in a much bigger way. For both the sport at large and the players themselves, long-time calls are being answered.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot that we don\u2019t want to see LIV do well, but I think what\u2019s best is having everyone play together,\u201d Fowler said. \u201cBrooks, and then with Patrick in the works, I think it\u2019s a step in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX \u2014 It was a sleepier afternoon than the WM Phoenix Open would have dreamt for itself. Overcast…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-452927","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-2260118958-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n