Rick Shiels suggests what several PGA Tour players will think of Wesley Bryan being suspended after LIV Duels appearance

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Wesley Bryan is currently serving a suspension from the PGA Tour after taking part in the inaugural LIV Duels earlier this month.

It is fair to say that Wesley Bryan is in one of the most unique positions in the current game. He previously won on the PGA Tour and came agonisingly close to retaining his card last year.

Bryan has featured in a handful of events this year. But it does seem that the large majority of his fanbase comes from the work he has done on YouTube alongside his brother George.

That saw him invited to first Creator Classic ahead of last year’s Tour Championship. And he was also involved as LIV Golf took on a similar idea with The Duels, which saw a number of their star players feature alongside content creators.

Rick Shiels reacts to Wesley Bryan being suspended by the PGA Tour

That led to Bryan being suspended indefinitely by the PGA Tour. Plenty of fans expressed their dismay at Bryan’s suspension given that he does not have full member status on tour. And technically, he did not play in a LIV Golf tournament.

However, Dan Rapaport defended the PGA Tour over Bryan’s suspension. And speaking on The Rick Shiels Golf Show, Rick Shiels suggested that he had some sympathy for the tour.

“I was on the ground when everyone was talking about it. Before playing there was so many back and forths between Wesley Bryan and his team and the PGA Tour. There were lots and lots of phone calls and meetings and a lot of confusion, I would say,” he said.

“Is he being banned, is he not being banned? There were leaks that he was being banned and then it got rescinded. Then it got put back in place again. I think it’s a real interesting point. I probably see it in a couple of different ways. As a mate who I played lots of golf with, who I like and is an unbelievable talent – I don’t know where he sits in his mind at the moment. What does he want to be? Does he want to be a PGA Tour player or a content creator? Not that you have to choose and be on or the other but I feel like he is a turning point in his career, where he is much more edging on the side of the content creator rather than PGA Tour player. It is wild to say that because he has had tremendous success on the PGA Tour, he won at Harbour Town and has been plagued by injuries, where he has had to sit out a couple of seasons. He is not winning all the time or up there all the time, but he is an established player and can play well and he brings a lot of character to the game as well. He has a huge entertainment factor.

“This opportunity came up to play with Duels and it’s a similar conversation with his brother George. George is still trying to be a PGA Tour player from what I understand but their YouTube has blown up in the past couple of years, so they are kind of being pulled from both sides. Both players have played in the creator classic and that almost didn’t make sense to me, having Wesley Bryan play in it, because he is a PGA Tour player. But I think because he has so many things going on at the moment, I think it’s hard for him to concentrate on his golf. I don’t know.

“I think from the PGA Tour, they almost can’t win in this situation. If they don’t ban him I would imagine that very opinionated PGA Tour players would have a huge issue with that because they would be like hold on a minute, I can’t go over and play LIV and make money by playing on LIV, yet you are letting Wesley Bryan do it. That can’t be right. And then if you do ban him, the whole of social media and the world is going to be up in arms. You can’t ban Wesley for playing in a bit of a hit and giggle! In the nicest way the Duels was a content piece, it was a YouTube video. It was a fun and exciting opportunity but not somewhere you can make a living do that all the time. I don’t think he should have been banned, but the PGA Tour board, this is my opinion, would have been getting a lot of hassle from the PGA Tour players if he hadn’t been banned or suspended.”

How Wesley Bryan has performed on the PGA Tour in 2025

As Shiels notes, Bryan appears to be at an interesting place in his career. While he would have hoped to have kept his full card last year, he seems to be better placed than most to bounce back from the setback given the work he has done on YouTube.

He has played three times on the PGA Tour still in 2025. But he has only made one cut so far, as he finished tied for 25th at the Farmers Insurance Open.

You would imagine that the $74,000 he has received in prize money has barely covered his costs of going to the tournaments.

Bryan surely will not have been surprised to have been suspended – though he is appealing the decision. But you can definitely understand why he felt appearing in The Duels was worth taking the risk for at this stage of his playing career.