LIV Golf members have reached out to PGA Tour about return, but terms and pathways will be more restrictive

LIV Golf Is LIV Golf finished? What recent funding reports mean, landing spots for Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm, where golf goes from here

PGA Championship Brooks Koepka adds alternate event to schedule for PGA Championship prep

The two interesting cases are DeChambeau and Rahm. Rahm is in an ongoing dispute over membership reinstatement on the DP World Tour, an impasse that has added meaning given that his 2027 Ryder Cup eligibility runs through the European circuit. The DP World Tour has, notably, been working to find him a path back, although Rahm has not made that easy. At the Masters he was unapologetic and gave no indication of softening his position. The PGA Tour is a tougher audience. The view from players and from Ponte Vedra is narrow and consistent: Rahm's exit at the end of 2023 may have prolonged the conflict by a full year. LIV was on the ropes. The framework agreement was advancing. Then Rahm crossed over, delivered the Saudi circuit the validation it was running out of time to find, and the tour was caught flat-footed. Should LIV collapse in 2027, Rahm's only option may be a humbled return to the DP World Tour—assuming a door is still open at all.

DeChambeau's situation is more complicated. In the weeks before the Masters, his representatives approached LIV about a new deal. He remains LIV's most prominent figure—one of the most recognizable players in the sport and, by most measures, its most commercially valuable. Sources tell Golf Digest that DeChambeau was seeking a figure well above Rahm's reported $300 million contract. LIV did not engage at that level. In recent months, DeChambeau has been noncommittal about his future, saying that his current deal runs through year's end and tepidly noting "as long as LIV is here, I would figure out a way for it to make sense." He was, at one stage, an enthusiastic supporter of the league. Sources say his view has shifted, and that he now regards LIV as having underdelivered on its initial vision. A return to the PGA Tour, the antitrust litigation aside, also presents complications. He has previously described feeling out of place there, restricted by regulations he found at odds with his approach. He is reportedly open to the changes Rolapp has introduced—and the Athletic reported earlier this month that DeChambeau’s representatives have reached out to explore his options—though that openness is conditional.

A PGA Tour that includes Rahm and DeChambeau is, on competitive merits, a stronger product. Both rank among the most accomplished players of their generation, and their presence in fields would meaningfully affect ratings, sponsor interest, and the depth of marquee events. Officials around Rolapp recognize that. They also recognize the difficulty of the position. Both players were offered a defined pathway back through the Returning Member Program and elected not to take it. Readmitting them now—not because they have reconsidered the benefits of the tour, as Koepka did, but because LIV's collapse has eliminated their alternatives—would carry a different meaning than a routine reinstatement. It would amount to the tour absorbing players on terms set by circumstance rather than by the program Rolapp put in place earlier this year.

With significant structural changes to the PGA Tour's schedule, governance and competitive model still being finalized, the precedent matters. Internally, there is concern that such a move would signal the tour is willing to revise its own framework under pressure. It’s an impression Rolapp can ill afford as he attempts to consolidate authority and credibility in the early stages of his tenure.

With LIV no longer having the PIF's funding, whether the league can secure replacement capital to replace it is an open question. PIF has reportedly committed in excess of $5 billion to LIV since its 2022 launch, with limited evidence of a path to profitability and no meaningful television rights deal in a major market. Any prospective investor would be inheriting a venture that the world's most aggressive sovereign wealth fund concluded was no longer worth sustaining. A difficult starting point for negotiations, particularly in the current sports media environment, where valuations across leagues and properties have softened. For the players and personnel still under LIV contracts, the timeline is the more immediate concern. Even in a best-case scenario involving new ownership, the process of identifying a buyer, conducting due diligence, and restructuring the league's financial commitments would likely extend well beyond the current funding runway. LIV CEO Scott O’Neil has already signaled that, should a future exist for LIV, it may not look like the present.

In the interim, there is the potential that LIV contracts may go unfulfilled, more events may be reduced or canceled outright, and that players weighing a return to the PGA Tour or DP World Tour will be doing so against a closing window. The path off the LIV roster, in other words, may not move as quickly as the path onto it once did.