Max Homa has admitted that his view on the future of the players who jumped ship from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf has changed as he conceded that he does not believe that a resolution to the game’s civil war is close.
The split in the game of golf remains, with LIV Golf continuing to try and establish itself as a heavyweight in the sport.
Certainly, it felt significant that while the PGA Tour‘s first FedEx Cup play-off event was coming to end, Brooks Koepka and Jon Rahm were battling it out in a play-off in LIV’s tournament at Greenbrier.
There have been a couple of false dawns, most notably when the framework agreement between the PGA Tour and PIF was announced last year, leaving the game of golf completely stunned. But so far, from the outside, there does not appear to be much progress being made in bringing the game back together.
Max Homa shares how his stance on LIV Golf stars has changed
There have been a lot of strong opinions expressed on both sides, but it seems that most players are now seeing little benefit in the game being so divided.
Speaking on the No Laying Up Podcast, Max Homa suggested that his animosity towards those who left to join LIV has largely evaporated over the last couple of years.
“I don’t really know good or bad, I just know at best, this isn’t happening soon. That’s a shame, I’m incredibly biased as to who is to blame for that, for the fans, I am. But I am all for a reconciliation, I don’t know what it would look like. It’s definitely complicated, I’ve talked to Jay a lot, I’m on the pack, we’ve talked about it a ton, what would it even look like, and it’s pretty tough to figure it all out, because they all have their own deals and their own team stuff, so it’s tricky,” he said.
“I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news and say nothing’s going to happen, I will say a lot of people, myself included, have turned onto the side of let’s just figure it the hell out. But the problem is figure the hell out is still going to take some time, because of them leaving. That’s been a big thing, I’m not saying the tour have handled it perfectly by any means, but there had to be something. There was a competitor, I think the tour did what they thought at the time was the best to make sure we didn’t get crushed and what ended up happening is the fans got killed on it.
“I can promise everyone is working really hard and everyone is aligned with let’s just make the fans as happy as we can. But again, I can’t snap my fingers and go, ‘hey Bryson, you can come back to the tour’. There were rules, there were contracts signed, whether people liked them or not, there’s a lot going on that is just not a magic wand, so it might take some time. It’s upsetting and the majors have been so fun, having everybody there. But again, we are also working on continuing to make who we have now make it good as we can for the fans.
“A lot of thought goes into it, a lot of work from people the general person would never even know their name. I’m quite proud of that from anybody, but yeah, it’s a tricky business now, they have their thing that they have going on and it’s not as seamless as, ‘oh yeah, let’s all just get back together’. I know a lot of people would love to do that, there’s just things that are actually pending and real lawsuits for the DOJ, it’s not like we can just call them up and, ‘hey, Rahmbo’s coming back, how about that?’ I don’t think it works like that. It’s still a bummer but I don’t think it’s bad news that a lot of the guys have changed their tune and been like let’s just figure this out.”
Too many players now keen for resolution to not happen
It is clear that there will be a resolution at some stage which will see the world’s best players facing off much more regularly, particularly with so many of the biggest names keen to see the situation sorted.
But clearly, neither the PGA Tour or LIV will want to give up too much ground and both will want to emerge from any agreement even stronger than they were before.
As Homa notes, the fans have suffered because of not seeing the likes of Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau face off against Xander Schauffele and Scottie Scheffler most weeks.
But clearly, there is so much more work to be done before Homa gets his wish, as well as the wish of many of his peers.
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