Former LIV Golf player and former PGA Tour winner Hudson Swafford is a man without a tour at this point, and he won’t be able to even consider coming back to the PGA Tour until 2027.
Speaking on the Subpar podcast with Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz, the former winner of The American Express said that he believes the PGA Tour has issued him a five-year suspension for going to play in the LIV Golf Invitational Series, which was the debut season of the Saudi-owned league in 2022. Swafford played in five of event events in that series, and the Tour suspended Swafford for one year for each of those tournaments played without an approved release from the PGA Tour.
“I don’t know how you can come up with a five or five-and-a-half year suspension based on I played five events while the PGA Tour season was going on in ’22 that I wasn’t able to get media releases for,” Swafford, a three-time Tour winner, said on the podcast.
PGA Tour players, though they are considered independent contractors and not employees of the tour, agree to specific conditions of membership that include seeking approval from the tour to compete in events on other tours. No LIV Golf player that was (or is) also a PGA Tour member received permission to play in the events, and the PGA Tour chose to indefinitely suspend players who went to play on LIV Golf. Several players ultimately resigned their memberships.
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For players who were not PGA Tour members prior to joining LIV Golf, their prospects to join the PGA Tour are simpler. They have to serve a one-year blacklisting by the PGA Tour after they leave LIV, and then they can take up PGA Tour membership, once earned.
Of course, since LIV Golf started in 2022, the makeup of the PGA Tour has changed dramatically. Starting in 2026, only the top 100 players in the final FedEx Cup Fall standings will have full status and access to all regular events on the schedule. That’s down from the historic number of 125. The Korn Ferry Tour will offer just 20 PGA Tour cards to its leading points earners, down from 30 in recent years. Additionally, the Signature series is reserved predominantly for the top 50 players in the prior season’s FedEx Cup standings. Field sizes are being trimmed, and that will make it more difficult for someone like Swafford, who could play out of the Past Champion category, to get any kind of starts.
Swafford would have to try to Monday qualify for open events, though approximately one-third of those events are being eliminated. He could attempt to earn a spot through PGA Tour Q-School at the end of 2027.
Swafford missed almost the entirety of 2023 with a hip injury, and 2024 was effectively a make-up LIV season to satisfy his contract. He had hoped to be able to play in the 2022 FedEx Cup playoffs despite playing on LIV Golf at the same time, and that was denied in a court order. He didn’t anticipate that LIV Golf would still be operating going into 2026 without some kind of agreement or deal with the PGA Tour and DP World Tour.
“We knew there would be some repercussions,” Swafford told Colt Knost. “Knew I’d be suspended for a little while. Didn’t know how long. There were definitely some unknowns there. I didn’t think (the game) would be this fractured this long, to be honest with you. I don’t think any of us did.
“I still think it needs to come together. I don’t know how it’s going to come together. As a golf fan, you want to see the best playing together. I don’t think this fracture is good for the game. But on the flip side, the PGA Tour needed to be shanked up a bit.”
