Brian Rolapp insists the PGA Tour is 'not spending a lot of time' thinking about bringing back LIV Golf stars

"[Fans] want to see the best golfers together as often as possible, and I agree with that. That's great. I've always been very clear publicly that I'm interested in whatever makes the PGA Tour better," Rolapp said. "But at the same time, there's a reality we have a membership, and anything we do to make the PGA Tour better, we need to balance that with the interest of our current members. While I don't have a lot of scar tissue of the past, it sort of still exists, and I have to be conscious of that."

As much as his quote about "not spending a lot of time" thinking about LIV stars feels like a bit of bravado and bluster, it's probably the truth. LIV's sudden upheaval creates more urgency for their business and for players trying to figure out what their future looks like, but the PGA Tour is now in an even greater position of power and has no reason to hurry into anything.

When it comes to DeChambeau in particular, the internal conversations within the PGA Tour about what they would be willing to offer him in a potential return have almost assuredly already happened. LIV's loss of funding after 2026 gives the PGA Tour a bit more leverage and makes it more likely DeChambeau looks to leave, but his contract situation has been well known for years and the Tour has had ample time to prepare for what line they're willing to draw with the two-time U.S. Open champ.

Rahm is a more interesting case, particularly if LIV finds new investors who want to clean their books and would be willing to work out a mutual parting of ways on the remaining years on his contract. However, until then, as Rahm recently laid out bluntly, "I have several years on my contract left, and I'm pretty sure they did a pretty good job when they drafted that. So I don't see many ways out, and as of right now."

No one else moves the needle to the point that the Tour needs to even consider bending over backwards to let them in. The likely path for those players is the one Patrick Reed took, which is to accept the yearlong suspension from their last LIV event and return on whatever status they still have as a past winner or can gain through a season on the DP World Tour.

In the meantime, the PGA Tour will monitor the situation and have the conversations it needs to have, but as has been the case since he arrived, Rolapp won't be pushing the panic button and scrambling to bring in LIV players. If anything, playing a patient game now makes more sense for the PGA Tour, as the longer things drag on for LIV's stars without any certainty for their future, the more leverage the Tour has in potential negotiations.