LIV Golf players won’t come back to PGA Tour in droves (Report)

Though the merger has not yet gone through and the future of LIV Golf is a little bit murky, there’s an easily foreseeable future where LIV and PGA Tour players compete on one tour against one another. That’s what PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan wants, and it’s something a lot of fans have asked for, too.

Unfortunately, one golf insider doesn’t believe it will be that simple or that it will be that impactful. LIV has a handful of superstars on the circuit, but not everyone will be welcomed back with open arms or will want to return to the PGA Tour when they’re allowed to.

Golf reporter says some LIV Golf stars won’t come back

The PGA Tour has recently implemented changes to limit the size of itself. There are fewer memberships to go around now, as only the top 100 from each year are exempt. They can’t exactly reverse course and open up a ton of spots for returning LIV stars.

Golfweek’s Eamon Lynch believes the Tour will likely only reach out to the biggest names to bring them back on. “That ‘status’ might encompass recent major winners like Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka and Cameron Smith. Or lifetime members with more than 20 Tour victories (Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson),” he said.

Lynch believes it gets tricky after that. What of Joaquin Niemann or Patrick Reed, both of whom have recent wins on the PGA Tour? How will they balance the potential influx of LIV stars with existing PGA members? It’s a difficult situation all around.

The reporter also noted that the Tour will need players who are competitively important, i.e. those who can actually play and win on the Tour, and commercially valuable, i.e. those who can enhance the bottom line and bring more attention.

“The list of LIV players who check both boxes — who matter competitively and commercially — is short and inarguable: DeChambeau, Rahm, Koepka, and Smith. It ends there,” Lynch argued. That might be the extent of it when it comes to potential returns.

This opens another potential can of worms, too. If there is a “reunification” as everyone says there will and should be, how big can it be? There isn’t an abundance of spots to be handed back to those who left. This doesn’t even mention the fact that many LIV players won’t want to go back. Will Tom McKibbin, who skipped the PGA Tour altogether when turning pro, even be interested? Will others who chose LIV early on in their careers? Probably not.

So if and when this merger does come to fruition, don’t expect LIV players to come back in droves. There just won’t be that many no matter what happens.