Bryson DeChambeau’s contract negotiations with LIV Golf have loomed large for months. The two-time U.S. Open champ and YouTube phenom has become PIF’s most bankable golf asset over the past several years, with many believing the future of LIV now hinges on agreeing to a new deal with the biggest star in modern golf.
And that was all before this week. That’s when the PGA Tour welcomed Brooks Koepka back with open arms (and a few caveats), paving the way for recent major winners like DeChambeau to rejoin the world’s premier professional golf tour. The catch is that PGA Tour’s new open-door policy slams shut on February 2nd, rapidly accelerating the timeline for the LIV-DeChambeau negotiations.
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With Koepka gone and the likes of Jon Rahm and Cameron Smith also eligible to rejoin the PGA Tour, DeChambeau has been gifted an immense amount of negotiating power, and so far, he seems to be using it. On Tuesday, he posted a cryptic tweet of himself with an exit sign, seemingly pondering his future. 12 hours later, Front Office Sports’ Dave Rumsey posted a brief interview with DeChambeau, asking the Crushers captain if doing YouTube full-time while still playing majors would be a viable option for him. Unsurprisingly, DeChambeau jumped at the chance to stack the deck even further in his favor.
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“It’s incredibly viable option, I’ll tell you that,” DeChambeau replied. “Doing the course record series and playing ‘Break 50s’ [DeChambeau’s most popular YouTube segment] does keep me quite dialed in for tournament golf. That’s why I do it right before competition. It’s a possibility—the financial opportunities are there—and I’m excited to see what comes in the future.”
DeChambeau also revealed that he is currently in the middle of negotiations with LIV Golf over what is expected to be an extremely lucrative new deal. Interestingly, DeChambeau told Rumsey that goal is to come to a “solution that makes sense in the long term. If not, we’ll play this year and see what happens.”
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Despite the industry-wide fixation on the February 2nd deadline, it doesn’t appear DeChambeau (nor Rahm or Smith) is planning to follow Koepka back to the PGA Tour in 2026. Instead, what we’ve seen and heard from DeChambeau this week seems to be merely a negotiating tactic. Unlike Koepka, DeChambeau’s golf game and general happiness levels seem intact, plus he has earned enough leverage to collect his final year’s worth of LIV salary and likely still find a route back to the PGA Tour in 2027 if he desires one. If not, well, you heard the man. YouTube will be right there waiting for him.
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