LIV Golf: What next for Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau? The routes back to the PGA Tour and DP World Tour | Golf News
The futures of a few of the world’s finest golfers, together with Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau, have been thrust into uncertainty after Thursday’s announcement that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) will finish its funding of LIV Golf at the finish of the 2026 season.
It signifies that the breakaway tour, which fractured males’s skilled golf upon its inception in 2021, is now scrambling to discover new traders to guarantee the league can proceed to function.
Doubts have arisen about who would need to spend money on LIV given the league’s enormous outgoings, burning by round $100m (£73.5m) monthly.
Sky Sports understands that amid the uncertainty, a number of LIV gamers have sounded out the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour about being reinstated.
Welcoming golfers back can be a sophisticated course of for each excursions; every participant’s return would want to be dealt with on a case-by-case foundation, with the pursuits of the members who stayed loyal to the DP World Tour and the PGA Tour at the forefront of their deliberations.
Players may be grouped into 4 classes primarily based on their standing in the sport. There are the ‘blue-chip’ stars, the ‘bridge burners’, the DP World Tour’s eight, and the ‘rank-and-file’ gamers. They are seemingly to play out the remaining seven occasions of the LIV Season earlier than cancelling their contracts and returning to the common excursions.
But how straightforward will it’s for these gamers to return to the PGA Tour and DP World Tour?
Blue-chip gamers
DeChambeau, Rahm and Cameron Smith are LIV Golf’s marquee gamers. They are all main champions and have a mixed 52 skilled victories between them. It is not any shock that LIV threw the chequebook at them to lure them away from the PGA Tour, however now they signify a vastly engaging coup for the American circuit.
The PGA Tour’s need to have the finest gamers competing on the American circuit is not any secret, with commissioner Brian Rolapp having provided Rahm, Smith, DeChambeau, and Brooks Koepka, the likelihood to rejoin the tour earlier in the 12 months through the Returning Member Programme.
It was a one-time-only supply, out there to gamers who had received a serious title in the final 4 years. Koepka was the solely participant to settle for the deal and returned to play on the PGA Tour in January, whereas Rahm, DeChambeau and Smith all selected to fulfil their LIV contracts.
As a part of the Returning Member Programme, Koepka was required to pay $5m (£3.6m) to charity and will forfeit any participant fairness shares for the next 5 years.
Bryson DeChambeau appears on throughout the third spherical of LIV Golf South Africa in 2026 (Photo by Pedro Salado/LIV Golf through AP)
“Brooks Koepka took advantage of that deal; the others did not. DeChambeau is one of the players who sued the PGA Tour. Those players are going to find it a little bit trickier,” Sky Sports golf correspondent Jamie Weir stated.
“But they do benefit the PGA Tour as well. So it will be very interesting to see what happens with Rahm and DeChambeau, who are LIV’s two best players, two big stars and major champions.”
Hypothetically, the PGA Tour might supply DeChambeau, Rahm and Smith an analogous deal to the one Koepka has benefited from, however there are some sticking factors.
DeChambeau and LIV lawsuit
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Paul McGinley discusses LIV’s future, what it means for the gamers and why the idea hasn’t resonated.
DeChambeau, whose LIV contract runs out at the finish of the 2026 season, is in the strategy of negotiating a brand new contract with the breakaway league and was reportedly wanting for an eye-watering charge of round $500m (£367m) to keep. Given its precarious monetary state of affairs, it’s unlikely now that LIV will likely be ready to meet his calls for.
The American might search a return to the PGA Tour, however his relationship with the US circuit has soured since becoming a member of LIV, after DeChambeau turned a part of an antitrust lawsuit towards the PGA Tour.
He was one among 11 LIV gamers to be part of the lawsuit, which alleged the PGA Tour had deployed “anti-competitive” practices when it banned gamers who joined the insurgent tour. The case was later dropped.
The circumstances for DeChambeau’s return would seemingly be punitive. But the American might be ambivalent about re-joining the PGA Tour, given his rise to stardom on YouTube. He might look to additional that enterprise earlier than returning to skilled golf.
“They took hundreds of millions of dollars to go and play,” Brandel Chamblee informed The Golf Channel. “Isn’t it ironic that they’re all going to have to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to come back and play on the PGA Tour. I realise that fans say they want to see these players. But they’re going to have to pay these fines to come back.”
Rahm and the DP World Tour
Rahm’s future on the European Ryder Cup staff was thrust into doubt earlier this 12 months, after he refused to pay fines to the DP World Tour, which had been imposed on him after he selected to play on the LIV tour with out permission. The Spaniard appealed the sanctions however later dropped them and accused the DP World Tour of “extorting” gamers.
The fines had been reported to be roughly $3m (£2.2m), with Rahm nonetheless hopeful that an settlement between himself and the DP World Tour may be reached. In any occasion, ought to he want to play on the circuit once more, he would want to fulfill that penalty first.
“Rahm is unwilling to pay those fines to play on the DP World Tour,” Chamblee stated. “Well, how do you think he’s going to get back onto the PGA Tour? He’s going to have to pay some significant fines, far more than he’s being asked to pay for the DP World Tour.”
Players who burned bridges
Phil Mickelson watches his tee shot on the thirteenth gap throughout the first spherical of the U.S. Open golf match at Oakmont
Golf’s civil conflict ignited fierce rivalries amongst its prime gamers, and Phil Mickelson was one who discovered himself at the centre of these arguments.
Having initially stated he wouldn’t be part of the breakaway league, branding the PIF “scary motherf*****s”, the six-time main champion sensationally backflipped and joined LIV, taking part in in its inaugural occasion in London in 2022.
He turned an unofficial spokesperson for LIV, notably accusing the PGA Tour of “obnoxious greed” over a dialogue of participant media rights. His digs and involvement in the antitrust lawsuit towards LIV Golf finally embittered his relationship with the PGA Tour.
“I think we can say it with some certainty that we will never see Phil Mickelson on the PGA Tour again,” Weir stated.
“As one American commentator [Trey Wingo] put it yesterday, ‘that bridge has been burned, detonated and destroyed’.”
Mickelson, 55, is one among a number of elder gamers on LIV who might additionally choose not to return to the PGA Tour or the DP World Tour.
The likes of Ian Poulter, 50, and Lee Westwood, 53, might determine to step away from golf altogether or enroll to play on one among the legends circuits.
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Phil Mickelson holed out for par from the bunker at Royal Portrush regardless of leaving his first try in the sand.
Weir stated: “You have some players like Mickelson, Westwood and Poulter all in their 50s – I’d also throw Dustin Johnson (41) in there too, maybe he’s a little bit younger – but players who are multi-millionaires and might just decide, ‘I’m kind of done with professional golf. Now is the time to ride off into the sunset. Do I really need the grind of tour golf week in week out?'”
In any occasion, Mickelson will likely be ready to return to play at The Masters and the PGA Championship for the remainder of his life, whereas he also can return to play at The Open for the next 5 years, after profitable the Claret Jug in 2013.
Tyrrell Hatton and the DP World Tour eight
Tyrrell Hatton watches his tee shot on the sixth gap throughout the ultimate spherical of The Masters
In March, Tyrrell Hatton led a bunch of eight gamers granted conditional releases to play on the DP World Tour after they paid fines levied for breaching the tour’s guidelines by taking part in in LIV occasions.
The fines for every participant totalled out at round $3.41m (£2.5m), and they are going to now retain their membership standing.
The gamers included Laurie Canter, Thomas Detry, Tom McKibbin, Adrian Meronk, Victor Perez, David Puig and Elvis Smylie, however Rahm remains to be disputing the matter with the tour.
It is probably going that these gamers will hunt down a return to the PGA Tour in an analogous means to Patrick Reed.
The American left LIV Golf at the starting of the 12 months and returned to the DP World Tour utilizing his Honorary Life Membership, which he earned when he received The Masters in 2018. He has received twice on the European circuit in 2026 already, propelling himself to the prime of the Race to Dubai rankings.
Tom McKibbin celebrates victory at the Hong Kong Open
The top-10 gamers in the rankings acquire PGA Tour playing cards for the following season, with Reed set to play on the PGA Tour once more next 12 months.
McKibbin, who grew up taking part in golf at the Holywood Golf Club in Northern Ireland – the similar membership as Rory McIlroy – is maybe, alongside Hatton, the most attention-grabbing case in that group. He is presently taking part in at the DP World Tour’s Turkish Airlines Open, however was suggested by McIlroy in 2025 not to take the LIV money and be part of the insurgent league.
McIlroy was left “disappointed” by the transfer, including, “I feel like he’s giving up a lot to not really benefit that much.” He received a PGA Tour card in 2024, an achievement he described as a “massive goal”, however will now have to qualify another time.
Rank-and-file gamers
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Discussions in the Golf Central studio advised nobody at LIV Golf is aware of about the strategic considering, with one participant describing the state of affairs as ‘a large number’.
The ultimate tranche of gamers are those that Sky Sports golf correspondent Weir has referred to as the “rank and file players” – those that wouldn’t essentially seize the consideration of an viewers or assist enhance the product of the excursions.
“These players, to be quite honest, the PGA Tour don’t miss that much; they don’t really need them to benefit their product,” Weir stated.
“They don’t put bums on seats. They don’t bring eyeballs to the game; they are going to find the path back a little bit tougher.”
For instance, gamers like Jason Kokrak, Matthew Wolff and Marc Leishman might all discover it tough to return to the major excursions.
There are solely a finite variety of playing cards out there on each the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, and ought to a participant not have received membership, it’s seemingly they are going to have to qualify by the DP World Tour’s feeder tour, the Hotel Planner Tour.
For the PGA Tour, gamers will seemingly have to earn their spot through the Korn Ferry Tour.
“Clearly the pathway back isn’t going to be straightforward for a lot of the players, the PGA Tour know that they have them over a barrel now,” Weir stated.
“A lot of these players have been very stubborn and have dug their heels in but they will need to swallow some humble pie if they are to return.”
“Is this the end of LIV? Not definitely, but probably. It’s going to be very interesting to see where these players go next.”
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