Brooks Koepka has done the PGA Tour a huge favour with how he has dealt with the penalties he received to return ahead of the 2026 season.
It was inevitable at some stage that a big name on LIV Golf would look to return to the PGA Tour. Ultimately, it proved to be Brooks Koepka who decided to leave the breakaway league.
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The PGA Tour launched the Returning Member Program to enable Koepka to come back. The scheme forced the five-time major champion to donate $5 million to charity, while he would have to earn his way into signature events as he would not be eligible for any sponsor invites.
Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, and Cameron Smith were the only other players who qualified to take the same path. However, all of the trio opted to stay with LIV.
That decision is now looking like a real mistake.
LIV Golf’s biggest stars may soon need the PGA Tour to do them a big favour
It soon emerged that LIV’s future was in real doubt, with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia set to walk away at the end of the season.
If LIV is not a success after having $6 billion invested, it is hard to see how investors with far less wealth will be able to make it work.
With that, it would not be a surprise to see the likes of DeChambeau and Rahm attempt to follow Koepka’s path at some stage in the coming months.
However, DeChambeau has already expressed his belief that he should not face heavy sanctions if he returns to the PGA Tour. The two-time US Open champion believes that he would bring enough to the tour.
There is no question that DeChambeau and Rahm are among the biggest stars in the game. So it would certainly be a big boost to those at Ponte Vedra to have them involved, particularly with big changes coming in 2028.
However, that does not mean that they need to give away any of their leverage.
DeChambeau’s argument that he should not face penalties is laughable. But it becomes an even more baffling claim when you consider how well Koepka has taken every hurdle put in his way this year.
Brooks Koepka has helped strengthen the PGA Tour’s position since his return
Koepka has not complained once about the position he has been put into. He has accepted that he helped hurt the PGA Tour with his decision to jump ship in 2022.
He has been prepared to take the starts available to him, while he spoke at the Scottish Open about his determination to take responsibility for his own position and earn his way back into the signature events.
“I’ve said it multiple times, good play takes care of itself. I’ve got an opportunity to go out there and go play well this week,” he said.
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“And next week is a major, so it’s a lot more opportunity to kind of move up the board, I guess, and just looking forward to that, and then hopefully kind of finish out the year pretty strong.”
Koepka obviously would have preferred to not face sanctions. However, the way he has conducted himself in recent months shows that he deems the penalties to be entirely reasonable.
So the PGA Tour are well within their rights to use those demands as a baseline should DeChambeau and Rahm knock on their door in the next few months.
And if either player is not happy, the PGA Tour is in a strong enough position to tell them the time for negotiation has now passed.
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