THE $60 MILLION U-TURN: WHY BROOKS KOEPKA ABANDONED LIV GOLF FOR THE PGA TOUR
Brooks Koepka is back! The 5-time Major winner rejoins the PGA Tour under a new program. Is the LIV Golf era finally crumbling?
LIV Golf spent three years and billions of dollars poaching top players from the PGA Tour. Now, Brooks Koepka—a five-time Major winner—is shelling out big money just to come back.
Honestly, this feels like the biggest twist yet in golf’s ongoing civil war. And it could spell real trouble for the Saudi-backed league if other stars like Bryson DeChambeau bail in the next few weeks. That’s exactly what the PGA Tour wants with its new Returning Member Program. The deal? Any player who’s won a Major or The Players since 2022 and has been away for more than two years can come right back—no more 12-month ban.
This offer is open to DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, and Cam Smith until February 2. Not exactly a long window. And with the new LIV season kicking off in Riyadh on February 4, the timing is tight.
Brian Rolapp, the new PGA boss, is behind this move. He’s working closely with Tiger Woods, who sits on the PGA Tour Policy Board. Rolapp had to walk a tightrope—bring back a big name like Koepka to boost the Tour (and keep new investors like Fenway Sports Group happy), but don’t tick off loyal members who never chased the Saudi cash.
So here’s the compromise: Koepka pays $5 million to charity, skips the Player Equity Program for five years, gets no FedEx Cup bonus money this season, and can’t play in signature events unless he qualifies. In a memo, Rolapp said coming back will cost Koepka around $50-60 million. Sure, Koepka got a monster $125 million signing bonus from LIV and picked up another $45 million playing there, but it’s still a big hit.
Koepka last teed it up on the PGA Tour at the 2022 Valspar Championship. Now he’s set for a comeback at the Farmers Insurance Open, then the WM Phoenix Open.
He’s 35 now and, for a while, was just about unstoppable—he won four of the eight majors he played from the 2017 U.S. Open on. Then came the injuries. If you caught his story on Netflix’s Full Swing, you saw him wondering if his best days were behind him. Koepka’s always been a big-stage guy—he’s got more major wins than regular PGA Tour titles—and it turns out, LIV just wasn’t the right fit for him.
His form dipped last year. He missed three of four major cuts and sits way down at No. 159 in Data Golf’s rankings and No. 244 on the official list.
The new rule doesn’t cover everyone. Tyrrell Hatton, Joaquin Niemann, and Hudson Swafford—who’s banned until 2027 for playing five LIV events—aren’t eligible. All this just shows how LIV has changed golf: the money piles up around the biggest stars, and the PGA Tour’s new events cater to the elite.
So, what’s next for LIV? The PIF-backed league wanted a transfer window to keep fans interested, but definitely not like this.
They’ve spent $5 billion so far and now want to run like a real business. They’ve landed TV deals—TNT Sports in the UK, for example—but their latest signings, like Victor Perez, haven’t exactly set the world on fire.
One thing’s clear: Koepka’s exit gives DeChambeau more negotiating power for his next contract. DeChambeau’s deal ends after the 2026 season, and he’s probably LIV’s biggest loss—he’s got 4.3 million Instagram followers and 2.5 million on YouTube and brings a whole new crowd to the game.
Jon Rahm hasn’t found his groove in the Majors since moving to LIV for 2025. His signing was supposed to push the sport toward reunification. It hasn’t.
Nobody really knows what’s in those LIV contracts, but captains get equity in their teams. Greg Norman once said Tiger Woods was offered $700-800 million to join, mostly in the form of team equity. Since Rahm was the last big star to join, leaving would probably cost him even more.
For now, Rahm, DeChambeau, and 2022 Open champ Smith are under pressure to show they’re sticking with LIV. The clock’s ticking on the PGA Tour’s return offer.
Rolapp put it plainly: “This is a one-time, defined window and is not a precedent for future situations. Once the door closes, there is no promise that this path will be available again.”
EXECUTIVE "EXPECTS" JOE BURROW TO REQUEST OFFSEASON BENGALS EXIT NOW
Bengals in crisis: Explore why Joe Burrow is tired of losing and if the Chase-Higgins era is officially over in Cincinnati.
An NFL executive thinks Joe Burrow is ready to move on from the Bengals this offseason. According to him, Burrow’s tired of losing, and he wants a real shot at winning.
This past season didn’t help things. The Bengals missed the playoffs again, mostly because Burrow, 29, sat out nearly the entire year with a turf toe he picked up in Week 2. He hasn’t played a postseason snap since the 2022 AFC Championship loss to Kansas City.
Burrow’s still under contract until 2029, but that hasn’t stopped the speculation. “I could see him trying to get out,” the exec told SportsBoom. “Honestly, I kind of expect it. That’s a tough place to win, and he really wants to win.”
The Bengals’ track record is rough. They’ve never won a Super Bowl, and they’ve only made it to the big game once in the last 37 years.
Burrow was the first pick in 2020 and dragged the team to Super Bowl LVI in his second season, but they lost to the Rams. Since then, the Bengals have missed the playoffs three years straight. Even so, head coach Zac Taylor keeps his job, with owner Mike Brown backing him to stick around through 2026. But nobody’s sure if Burrow will still be his quarterback, and it’s not just Burrow. Guys like Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins have shaky futures, too.
“This is it,” an anonymous GM said about the Bengals’ situation. “They’re not trading for a star like Maxx Crosby. The defence is terrible. This is probably the last year Chase and Higgins are both around. It’s all coming to a head.”
Back in December, Burrow was asked if he could see himself not returning to Cincinnati next year. He said, “I can’t see that, no.” When pressed about whether he’s thought about playing elsewhere long-term, he admitted, “You think about a lot of things.”
He even suggested there’s friction inside the organisation. “It feels like everybody’s trying to stop me from playing football, and I’m fighting it, fighting everybody else,” Burrow said. “I just want to play ball; that’s all I want to do.”
SACRIFICE REQUIRED: MIKE BROWN’S NON-NEGOTIABLE RULES FOR REBUILDING THE KNICKS' WINNING CHEMISTRY
Are the Knicks contenders? Read Mike Brown’s championship claim, the KAT shooting crisis, and how to beat the dominant Pistons.
The New York Knicks kicked off this season with a lot of hype. After last year’s run to the Eastern Conference Finals, everyone figured they’d be pushing for a real shot at the title this time.
Knicks head coach Mike Brown isn’t shying away from that talk. He’s convinced this team can win it all. Sure, they've looked sharp in his first year at the helm, but it hasn’t been smooth the whole way. They started strong with 23 wins and 9 losses and even grabbed the NBA Cup. Then, out of nowhere, they crashed into a 2-9 skid that almost derailed everything.
After that rough patch, they rattled off eight straight wins, but since then, it’s been a lot of back-and-forth. One night they look like contenders, the next they’re just average. Even with the ups and downs, they’re sitting in third place in the East, just a game and a half behind the Celtics.
Brown still believes in his squad, despite all the turbulence. “I truly believe it,” he said Thursday. “We’re a championship team. But you have to be playing your best basketball;contenders; everyone has to be on the same page. Sacrifice is non-negotiable. If even one guy isn’t buying in, that wrecks your chemistry, and chemistry is everything. You need to want to compete every night. And you have to believe.”
He knows the pressure is there, but he keeps bringing it back to belief and accountability. “Even when things go south 2-7, 2-9, you can’t just believe in the process; you have to believe in each other. And everyone, starting with me, has to be held accountable.”
The Knicks have had their moments, but they still don’t look settled. Karl-Anthony Towns is having the worst shooting year of his career. Mikal Bridges can’t seem to find his rhythm, on offence or defence. It doesn’t help that tough, physical teams have given them nightmares. The Pistons, who are running away with the East, have manhandled the Knicks in all three matchups, outscoring them by a whopping 84 points combined. That’s not just a bad night; that’s a glaring talent gap the Knicks need to close.
If they want to be a real championship threat, everything has to come together. Right now, it’s obvious they’re still adjusting to a new system, and time is running out. The playoffs are coming fast. If they don’t figure it out soon, belief alone won’t be enough.
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