Though a return to the PGA Tour isn’t set just yet, and it’ll likely take a year or so at best, all signs are pointing to Brooks Koepka making a jump back to the league after he opted to leave LIV Golf earlier this month.
That, Billy Horschel said on Sunday, wasn’t “shocking” at all.
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«And it may continue with guys over the next handful of years if the contracts that they expect isn’t there, and they’re like, ‘Listen, I made my money I want to go back to the PGA Tour and compete for real championships and a little bit more meaning in golf than just the financial side,'» Horschel said after the TGL season opener in Florida on Sunday, via Golfweek.
Koepka, one of the bigger names who joined LIV Golf initially in 2022, announced earlier this month that he will no longer play on the Saudi Arabian-backed circuit. He had one year left on his initial contract, which is reportedly worth more than $100 million.
Koepka, a five-time major championship winner, can still compete in the majors this season. He could potentially play on the DP World Tour in Europe, too. But actually returning to the PGA Tour isn’t something that could happen until at least next fall.
The Tour has indicated that a pathway back from LIV Golf would require a player to sit out at least a full year from their last non-sanctioned event. For Koepka, that was on Aug. 25, 2025. If that’s the case, he could potentially play in their fall events next season.
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While most on the Tour’s side agree that there should be some sort of punishment handed down for Koepka and other future LIV Golf defectors, there isn’t a consensus of what that should be.
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“It’s going to be a mixed bag,” Xander Schauffele said on Sunday. “Depending on who you interview, what point in their career they are, where they sit in the standings, what the world ranking is, you’re just going to get an array of different answers.
“It’s going to be hard to make everybody happy, I can answer that.”
Horschel — an eight time Tour winner who currently sits at No. 53 in the Official World Golf Rankings — admittedly has changed his stance on the issue, too.
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«At the very beginning, I think I was on the side of, there needs to be some punishment for these guys,» he said. «And now I’m on the side that I think for the betterment of the game, for the quality of the PGA Tour product to continue to grow …
«Selfishly, having equity stake in the PGA Tour now, bringing Brooks back, that does add value. So I think there needs to be a process to figure out what [brings] these guys back.»
What happens with the two leagues, and the potential of other players jumping ship back to the Tour in the coming months and years, remains to be seen. There are a number of different paths that the Tour can take with players as they appear to take several steps ahead of LIV Golf as a whole. The league has struggled with TV ratings in its first few seasons, still isn’t getting OWGR points, and more. The merger or sorts that Tour commissioner Jay Monahan announced back in 2023 feels long gone.
Eventually, as long as things keep trending the way they are for LIV Golf, Horschel expects many more big names to follow Koepka back.
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«I’ve always thought that the guys that went to LIV would come back to the PGA Tour at some point for a sole fact that the salaries, the PIF, LIV, they’ve spent billions of dollars and they’re not getting any return on their money,» Horschel said. «They’re not going to keep signing these guys for the big contracts if the value for LIV doesn’t improve.»
