World golf has been immersed in a battle for five years between the United States and Europe, classic representatives of the discipline, with Saudi Arabia, patron of … LIV, the competition that divided the sport from the streets and the greens and in which Jon Rahm has played since announcing his million-dollar signing at the end of 2023. After a 2025 of relative tranquility, the year has started with news that promises to be a before and after in the relationship between the circuits, or at least for its protagonists. Brooks Koepka, winner of five majors and one of the great figures who have been part of the Saudi league since its birth in 2022, has left the competition and returned to the PGA Tour. All this in three weeks in which players and fans have had to live with rumors of all kinds about the management of the first player to leave LIV and return to American golf.
Koepka, a free verse who never wore the logo of the team he captained, the Smash, explained that his motivation for returning to the PGA was to be closer to his family and travel less. His wife suffered a miscarriage at the end of the year. He had one more year left on his contract at LIV, but his lawyers used a curious trick to find a more beneficial solution. And the Saudi league has abandoned its main hallmark, the three-round, 54-hole tournaments, or in other words, LIV in Roman numerals. From the course that begins in three weeks in Riyadh, it will be played as in the rest of the championships, over four days and 72 holes, although without a cut. But that’s another story. Koepka’s legal team said that he did not sign that when he shook up world golf and there he has found a safe passage.
50-85
million dollars
Koepka will stop winning after the agreed return to the American circuit
So the one from Palm Beach, Florida, returns to the PGA. As? With a series of conditions that some understand as humiliating for the player. Other voices affirm that the American circuit has lowered its ears to once again count on what a short time ago was one of the fittest players in the world. The PGA bans anyone who competes in the LIV with a one-year ban, starting from the last tournament of the Saudi tour. Koepka, which opens in two weeks at the Farmers Insurance in Torrey Pines – Rahm’s fetish field, by the way – will lose, or rather, will stop earning, between 50 and 85 million dollars.
Conditions
The deadline to return to the PGA expires on February 2 and only Smith, DeChambeau and Rahm can sign it
On the one hand, the American will give up this year to collect part of the loot from the FedEx Cup – the tournament from which the best on the circuit emerges and which distributes 100 million. In addition, he will not participate in the tour’s profits for the next five years, a fund that is shared among the players. In turn, he has committed to making a charitable donation of five million to an association that will be chosen jointly between the golfer and the PGA Tour itself. Aside from the economic aspect, Koepka will not be able to play in the so-called “designated tournaments” unless qualification is won on the field.
These guidelines were explained by the CEO of the American circuit, Brian Rolapp, in office since last summer and with a less belligerent stance towards the LIV than his predecessor, Jay Monahan. Rolapp published a letter to announce the creation of the Player Reintegration Program, a mechanism so that other players can follow the same path as Koepka: abandon the LIV and embrace the PGA again. The requirements? According to “meritocracy”, being champion of a major from 2022, a situation that only three men fulfill in the Saudi league: Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and Cameron Smith.
“I’m not going anywhere”
The year chosen is not coincidental. If 2021 had been set as the starting point, Phil Mickelson would enter the pools. But the American, one of the best in history, has been part of the LIV since its birth and is fiercely opposed to the PGA Tour. In an unprecedented move, Rolapp opens the door to a conditional amnesty. The deadline expires on February 2, two days before the LIV begins, and threatens that “once passed there will be no guarantee that there will be a similar opportunity again.”
However, none of the three seem willing to change their scene. DeChambeau is negotiating his renewal and sources around Rahm assure EL CORREO that at this moment the Biscayan’s intention is to “fulfill his contract at LIV.” Signed in December 2023 in exchange for around 500 million euros, it extends until the end of the 2028 season. «I wish Brooks the best, but I’m not going anywhere. “I’m focused on the league and my team this year,” the man from Barrika acknowledged this week in Florida during a press conference with the rest of the LIV captains. He said that the tough economic conditions posed by the PGA for returning “were no surprise. “I had heard rumors for quite a few weeks.”
