Neither “Golf, but Louder,” its original slogan, nor “Long LIV Golf,” the current replacement, applies anymore. Here we sit instead, with LIV quietly limping into the fading background. Ultimately, the experiment may have wildly enriched a few, but it served more to enhance the PGA Tour, forcing some good changes to its pay structure and player autonomy, with elevated events and bigger purses. Meanwhile, LIV is constantly playing catch-up with its own product. Not even the long-sought acquisition of world ranking points or a move to four-round play could offset the fundamental problems with a tour that turned its players into shells of their former selves, where guaranteed payouts and no-cut tournaments sapped them of competitive juice.
Why else would Brooks Koepka say this after quitting LIV, paying his exorbitant penalty, and carding a back-nine 29 during a round of the Myrtle Beach Classic: “That’s the most excited I’ve been playing golf in a long, long time. I can tell you that much. It’s been a long time since I’ve had fun playing golf. It’s been at least a year. I was very frustrated last year, just wasn’t in a good place.”
That place? LIV Golf.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had fun playing golf,” Brooks Koepka said at last weekend’s PGA Tour Myrtle Beach Classic.Raj Mehta/Getty
Now, as the PGA Championship gets ready to tee off Thursday in Pennsylvania and bring us to the halfway mark of golf’s major season, the questions swirl around the few remaining stars who defected from the PGA Tour and backed up their cars for the blood-soaked cash. Bryson DeChambeau is the game’s most fascinating free agent, with an expiring LIV contract, an enormous off-the-course social media profile, and an ego to match them both. As he whines publicly that a return can only happen if the rest of the PGA Tour players “want” him back, figuring he can just go grow his YouTube channel if they don’t and play whatever fields will have him, it remains obvious he has always valued his personal brand over the game itself.
I can’t help but hear the words of Rory McIlroy, the PGA Tour king who recently addressed the apparent demise of LIV. Forget about the over-the-hill defectors such as the MIA Phil Mickelson and the petulant Sergio Garcia, or the otherwise ignorable Dustin Johnson or Bubba Watson. It’s the guys such as DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, and Cam Smith, who wasted so much of their primes for the cash grab. If they ever again want to be considered among the best in the game’s history, they are going to have to swallow their pride and play against the best golfers in the game’s present.
“I’m not going to judge anyone for not wanting to play on the PGA Tour,” McIlroy said after the second round of last weekend’s Truist Championship. “But … if you want to be the most competitive golfer you can be, this is the place to be. And if you don’t want to play here, I think that says something about you.”
It says you valued the money over the prestige, no matter how much the evidence mounts that LIV failed to deliver on any of the promises sworn by Greg Norman, Mickelson, and Saudi investment chair Yasir Al-Rumayyan. Well, any of the promises other than the money. More time with family thanks to a different schedule and three-day tournaments? Koepka waxed poetic about his return to Florida and the time it means for a family that is so much happier when he also is happier. Patrick Reed gladly took a spot on the DP World Tour to work his way back to the PGA Tour, no matter how much international travel that demands.
Patrick Reed gladly took a spot on the DP World Tour to work his way back to the PGA Tour.Ross Kinnaird/Getty
“It’s a question if they do want to come back,” McIlroy said. “Obviously, we have seen the quotes over the last few days [that some said they don’t want to]. Again, it all depends on what happens to LIV. But if it is a scenario where they have the option to come back and play on the traditional tours, you know, I think [PGA Tour CEO] Brian Rolapp has said anything that makes this tour stronger, anything that makes the DP World Tour stronger, I think everyone should be open to that. That’s just good business practice.
“But again, I think there’s going to be a lot of sort of bridges to cross to get there.”
Once upon a time, LIV was happy to blow up the bridges and paint the wreckage pretty colors, figuring it would never have to worry about going back. Reality tells a different story.
Tara Sullivan is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at tara.sullivan@globe.com. Follow her @Globe_Tara.