There are two truths in collision here.
Yes, indeed, the PGA Tour won’t simply open its arms to LIV defectors if some request a return. As PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp recently told The Wall Street Journal, “There were rules, and they were broken. With rules comes accountability.” Especially in the case of the golfers who didn’t resign from the tour and, in turn, were in breach of contract playing on an unauthorized tour — especially those who sued the PGA Tour for antitrust violations. Ask Hudson Swafford and his apparent five-year suspension.
But it’s also true that Rolapp has proved he’ll make it up as he goes along if it helps the PGA Tour.
He’s not beholden to antiquated rules or bureaucracy. When he saw a window to bring back Brooks Koepka, he manufactured a “Returning Member Program” with an arbitrary set of guidelines — winning a major championship or The Players Championship from 2022 to 2025.
It’s pretty simple, according to people at the PGA Tour — if a player can make the product better, Rolapp will probably figure out a way to make it work. “The sports business is not that hard,” Rolapp said in March. “Just think like a fan, and 9 1/2 times out of 10, that’s probably the right answer.”
That sparked an idea for an exercise. Let’s think like some combination of a reporter and a golf fan. In the scenario LIV, in a funding crisis, ends at the end of this season — or players begin to defect, as PGA Tour sources confirm LIV players have at least reached out to understand pathways back to the PGA Tour — whom should Rolapp and/or the fans want back?
Screw it. Let’s rank ’em all.
The stars
1. Bryson DeChambeau
He is the content man. He is the one with 2.69 million YouTube subscribers, and who warranted “U-S-A!” chants at Pinehurst as he took down Rory McIlroy for the 2024 U.S. Open. He is polarizing, and that polarization only makes him even more valuable. People love Bryson, and people haaaaate Bryson. Those two feelings bring eyeballs. It’s the middle that stinks.
Of course, DeChambeau is the top target in this entire saga, but the reality is his potential return to the PGA Tour will be messy. DeChambeau was one of the players who maintained his PGA Tour membership when he went to LIV — meaning he technically has played four years in breach of contract — and he’s one of the 11 who sued. On Tuesday, he told ESPN’s Mark Schlabach the tour would have “severe penalties” waiting for him if he tried to return: “Quite unfortunate, in my opinion,” he said, “considering what I could do for them.”
Which leads us to the other bargaining chip here. DeChambeau will use his massive YouTube career as leverage, even telling ESPN directly he’d likely focus on YouTube in the event LIV did fold.
Which prompts the question, would Rolapp really stick with the punishments if DeChambeau could help the PGA Tour?
2. Jon Rahm
The PGA Tour’s losing Rahm didn’t hurt as much in the direct, obvious ways. It hurt in the margins. You turned on a PGA Tour event and noticed it was just a little less important. Did people turn on tour events for Rahm specifically? No. But for the better part of seven years, Rahm has stayed somewhere between the best player in the world and the fourth. Rahm vs. Rory mattered. Rahm vs. Scottie, etc.
The initial exodus in 2022 stung for the tour, but the Rahm departure at the end of 2023 made it official that majors were the only time the best of the best faced off. So the PGA Tour doesn’t need Rahm for viewership or social media. They need him so that, say, the Truist Championship feels like a bigger deal.
On the other hand, there’s likely nobody outside of Phil Mickelson who carries more baggage with the tour. He didn’t leave with the others; he left after the framework agreement when it felt like there was a light at the end of the tunnel. LIV momentum was dying. It wasn’t landing stars anymore. Rahm gave LIV life and legitimacy.
And because of that timing, Rahm reportedly has a longer, tighter contract than others. Simply walking away without the league’s folding seems difficult.
3. Dustin Johnson
Is he Dustin Johnson anymore? Of course not. But people love DJ. The often thrown-around line is he’s the one player PGA Tour peers didn’t resent in 2022, because … he’s just DJ. Don’t overthink it.
A very good golfer
Tyrrell Hatton’s on-course outbursts are known to golf fans. (Andrew Redington / Getty Images)
4. Tyrrell Hatton
Even in a rough season, Hatton is the actual third-best golfer at LIV. He’s a four-time Ryder Cupper, a guy who’s consistently hung around the top-20 golfers in the world for almost a decade and one who just finished tied for third at the Masters and tied for fourth at the U.S. Open.
Plus, Hatton is a character. Even if it rubs some the wrong way, Hatton’s rants about courses or the way he’s playing are fantastic. The PGA Tour misses those guys.
But, like Rahm, he came over late, in early 2024. I can’t help but wonder whether those are the ones who get punished most.
‘OK, I wanna see this’
5. Joaquin Niemann
For better or worse, Niemann has become the avatar for LIV Golf’s field strength debate. He won seven LIV events but took 24 tries to crack the top 10 at a major championship. He’s still never finished better than his tied for eighth at the 2025 PGA Championship.
He’s been quite bad this year, so maybe this is temporarily too high, but still. Niemann is a stud. Besides the LIV titles, he was just 23 when he ran away with a Genesis Invitational in 2022. Through much of the last three years, he’s been a top-10 talent in the world. Which is why he’s so interesting/confusing/easy to make fun of, and fit perfectly into the discourse over whether LIV was getting enough recognition, even as he struggled at most opportunities.
One, you’re just adding a great talent who is still just 27.
Two, oh, man, golf nerds would be so locked into watching if Niemann can compete.
Ushering in young, valuable prospects
6. David Puig
7. Tom McKibbin
8. Jose Luis Ballester
9. Elvis Smylie
10. Caleb Surratt
One thing LIV has done a savvy job of is buying early on young talents, offering them guaranteed money they’d be years away from making on the PGA Tour, if they made it at all. Some failed, such as James Piot and Andy Ogletree. Others, such as Surratt (22 years old), we’re still a long way from knowing what they can be. And this is a key part of PGA Tour recent history, too, because the tour responded by creating pathways to get top college stars such as Ludvig Aberg, Luke Clanton and Michael Thorbjornsen their PGA Tour cards immediately.
David Puig has a lot of potential. (Hector Vivas / Getty Images)
Though I wouldn’t go as far as calling them “stars,” all the above names are 24 or younger. Puig is an awesome 24-year-old Spanish talent who played in the Olympics. McKibbin, 23, is an up-and-comer from Rory McIlroy’s home club in Northern Ireland. And Ballester, just 22, is a U.S. Amateur champ who can launch it. Plus, imagine the marketing materials they could make with different creeks he could pee into!
A bomb, but a bomb you wanna touch
11. Phil Mickelson
You don’t need me to spell this out. I’m sure the PGA Tour wants absolutely nothing to do with a 55-year-old Mickelson, hence his being this far down. But he’s also Phil Mickelson.
You could have been somebody!
12. Cameron Smith
It’s a running joke at The Athletic how much I enjoyed prime Cam Smith, but let’s not play revisionist history here. When Smith won The Players Championship and then took down McIlroy at the Open — at St. Andrews! — in thrilling fashion, he was clearly a top-three player in the world. He was this quirky, swashbuckling, scramble-god who boasts nine major top-10s to his name.
Since he left in fall 2022, Smith has gone from the No. 2 player on DataGolf to No. 142. He’s only 32, but he hasn’t been himself for at least three years.
Though history books might view Rahm as the one who affected his legacy most in going to LIV, Smith is the biggest shame. His career has just not been the same.
Pretty nice golfers
13. Thomas Detry
14. Sebastian Munoz
15. Dean Burmester
16. Byeong Hun An
17. Abraham Ancer
18. Carlos Ortiz
19. Marc Leishman
Are any of these names going to move a needle? No. But they are all quality players. They’re all good enough still to hold on to PGA Tour cards. Detry won the WM Phoenix Open last year, and Ancer won a FedEx Cup playoff event not too long ago.
Realistically, the PGA Tour does not need to make exceptions to bring back any of these people. But their eventual inclusion would just help strengthen the tour’s depth.
Could Ian Poulter, left, join Ryder Cup peer Justin Rose back on the PGA Tour? (Cliff Hawkins / Getty Images)
You once were somebody, right?
20. Sergio Garcia
21. Bubba Watson
22. Lee Westwood
23. Ian Poulter
24. Louis Oosthuizen
25. Paul Casey
26. Charl Schwartzel
27. Graeme McDowell
28. Martin Kaymer
You guys mattered! You won majors and maybe even reached world No. 1! You thrived at Ryder Cups and won plenty of top-tier events!
Now, you have bad vibes attached to your names, and you’re not even a fraction of the players you once were. Not saying you should be, by the way. You’re all between 41 and 53. You had great careers, so it’s not like you need to go back anyway. Your names do indeed carry significant value, but your current place in the sport is not worth the trouble.
Then again, these are the exact types of players the Champions Tour needs. There’s a dream of a Champions renaissance with Tiger Woods back in the mix eventually. It’s worth at least considering for these guys, no?
He’s a story, at least
29. Anthony Kim
Kim’s win in Adelaide was one of the biggest stories in golf this year. It defied our comprehension, somebody not playing golf for over a decade, struggling nearly every week for a couple of years, and then taking down Rahm and DeChambeau in front of more than 100,000 people in Australia. It was sincerely cool.
Let us not forget the PGA Tour also found itself in discussions with the mysterious recluse in early 2024, but he chose a wild-card spot on LIV, where he could essentially relearn how to play golf again while still getting paid. He then quickly killed much of that goodwill by attacking everyone on social media and calling a whole lot of people vulgar names. So, I’m not sure it’s the best PR decision to approach him.
The removal of the asterisk
30. Talor Gooch
The inaugural individual LIV champ! The man who famously said the majors should have an asterisk because top LIV players such as himself weren’t given spots. Listen, if this were just who I want to watch, he’d be right there with Niemann because I wouldn’t be able to take my eyes off him. The entertainment each round would be off the charts. I’d insist they pair him only with stars such as Rory and Scottie, men told their majors didn’t count as much in this era.
Realistically? He’s No. 157 on DataGolf these days. Nah.
Michael La Sasso’s introduction to pro golf has not gone as planned. (Francois Nel / Getty Images)
Sometimes things just don’t go how you planned
31. Matthew Wolff
32. Michael La Sasso
Man, Wolff was so sick when he broke out, a ball-striking wizard from Oklahoma State who finished tied for fourth and at second in his first two majors at age 21. He was top-20 in the world before he turned 22. Then, he just lost his swing. It’s sincerely a sad story, going from an elite iron player to legit one of the worst on tour instantaneously. Still, he’s a fascinating name, and young enough still for nerds to have some hope a turnaround could come.
La Sasso won the NCAA national championship last summer before passing up a chance to play the Masters to join Mickelson’s team, the HyFlyers. Mickelson has missed almost the whole season, and La Sasso has finished in the top half of the field once.
Players who exist
33. Harold Varner III
34. Thomas Pieters
35. Branden Grace
36. Richard Bland
37. Charles Howell III
38. Victor Perez
39. Cameron Tringale
40. Brendan Steele
41. Peter Uihlein
42. Laurie Canter
43. Jason Kokrak
44. Anirban Lahiri
45. Lucas Herbert
46. Adrian Meronk
47. Sam Horsfield
48. Danny Lee
49. Scott Vincent
You don’t have thoughts on these people. And it’s OK that you don’t have thoughts on these people.
‘I don’t know who this man is’
50. Richard Lee
51. Younghan Song
52. Luis Masaveu
53. Yosuke Asaji
54. Bjorn Hellgren
55. Ben Campbell
56. Minkyu Kim
57. Miguel Tabuena
This is when we remember that LIV stans liked to say the PGA Tour was so weak without LIV and it didn’t have any depth anymore. The 50th or so best players on the PGA Tour are players such as Daniel Berger, Gary Woodland, Keith Mitchell and Wyndham Clark. There is a large difference, and it’s what made it more difficult for LIV Golf to gain traction.
We all understood the best LIV players were indeed elite. We understood how good Rahm and DeChambeau are. But when the 10th-highest-rated LIV player according to DataGolf — an unbiased collector of golf information — would be fighting to keep their card on the PGA Tour, it’s quite difficult to understand what a win means, or a top five, let alone a top 10.
This exercise is primarily a helpful reminder. There are LIV players whom the PGA Tour has been hurting without. It certainly wants them back.
There are just fewer than you even remember.