2026 season tees off in Hawaii this week.
Also Koepka is coming back to the PGA Tour:
Also Koepka is coming back to the PGA Tour:
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*** 2026 PGA Tour Thread ***
- Thread starter BigJCy
- Start date
PGA Tour reinstates Brooks Koepka, invites other elite LIV stars to join him
Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and Cameron Smith have the opportunity to rejoin the PGA Tour as part of the Returning Member Program.
www.nytimes.com
How much money will Brooks Koepka be fined?
Koepka’s estimated total penalty could land between $51-85 million, which the PGA Tour believes to be one of the “largest financial repercussions in professional sports history.”But those penalties are largely tied to future compensation.
• Koepka will not be eligible for the PGA Tour’s player equity program for five years. Essentially, while more than 200 current and former PGA Tour players receive recurring grants from a pool of $1 billion in equity, Koepka will not reap those benefits until 2031.
• He will also not receive any share of the FedEx Cup bonus money in 2026.
• He has agreed to make a $5 million charitable contribution, chosen collaboratively with the tour.
I think a lot of it had to do with living in obscurity on the LIV tour. No one is watching.
Season-long viewership spells disaster for LIV Golf compared to PGA Tour
Season-long viewership for LIV Golf proved disastrous compared to the PGA Tour, with the Saudi-funded league struggling to attract viewers.
awfulannouncing.com
The Saudi-funded LIV Golf league failed to make significant inroads during its first season on a major broadcast network.
Across 17 telecasts on Fox this year, LIV Golf averaged just 338,000 viewers, a far cry compared to its PGA Tour competition. When considering just LIV’s final round viewership, the rogue golf league only fared slightly better, averaging 385,000 viewers across five telecasts. Even removing from consideration LIV’s three international tournaments to air on Fox, the league averaged 344,000 viewers across 14 telecasts, hardly better than its overall average on the network despite the exclusion of unfavorable windows.
To be certain, these figures are generally better than what LIV Golf was drawing on The CW, which aired the league prior to its recent deal with Fox. LIV telecasts generally drew anywhere from 200,000 to 300,000 viewers on The CW. However, that baseline is far higher than what the league would attract on FS1 and FS2, where telecasts ended up when the Fox broadcast channel was airing other programming. Midway through this season, LIV broadcasts on FS1 were averaging just 63,000 viewers.
Unsurprisingly, PGA Tour viewership proved much more robust than LIV over the course of 2025. Final round viewership for the PGA Tour averaged 2.66 million viewers across 26 events on NBC and CBS. Compared to LIV’s five final round broadcasts on Fox, the PGA Tour beat the Saudi league by a factor of about 7-to-1.
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Cyclonepride
Thought Police
Yeah, I just want to get to the point where LIV is just some weird offshoot like TGL that some guys participate in during off weeks. The PGA field is really strong even with that going on, and would be really, really strong with everyone playing together.
I think what both the TGL and LIV ratings show is that while some players might like team golf, and definitely like the $$$, there isn't a big demand for it from fans. LIV has become the XFL/USFL/UFL/etc. of golf. You'd think there might be a real market for it, but then you discover the only market for it was Greg Norman, Saudis, and disgruntled rich dudes who felt they should be more rich.
Cyclonepride
Thought Police
The team aspect is really only a novelty that I need for Ryder Cups and stuff like that. I turned it on once when absolutely nothing else was on, and the whole vibe of it was so contrary to what I am used to watching in golf that I changed channels after less than 5 minutes.
In things like auto racing, your team is matched up with a manufacturer. So it kind of makes sense. In other things, it's pretty much lined up with your country. Trying to create some sort of loyalty to teams created for no real reason has proven challenging for LIV.
I was a huge fan of Shark but he ended up fitting nicely in the disgruntled rich dude category himself.
The other thing is a lot of PGA guys have a loose team aspect in the off season. Many share coaches, I'm sure trainers as well and just float around the courses in Florida together where most live. Or spend a few weeks on a yacht in the Mediterranean together and helicopter to courses near by
I wouldn't be surprised to see Rahm follow this path. He seems miserable with LIV.
I'm surprised the LIV hasn't merged (or folded) as Rahm, Bryson and Brooks mentioned several times.
Looks like they opened the door to it.
It's going to end up costing Brooks 55 to 90 million spread out over years.
Hope he doesn't have to apply for food stamps.
TGL has done well relatively speaking ratings wise, although it looks to be less this year than last year so far.
LIV is actually worse ratings wise than TGL.
Anyways, I am glad Brooks is back. It was clear after his first year, he realized he made a mistake.
I think the penalties are rather large that he's paying, and the PGA is basically giving this offer to a handful of stars and that's it. If you're one of the non major winners, basically you're done for life with the PGA.
LIV is actually worse ratings wise than TGL.
Anyways, I am glad Brooks is back. It was clear after his first year, he realized he made a mistake.
I think the penalties are rather large that he's paying, and the PGA is basically giving this offer to a handful of stars and that's it. If you're one of the non major winners, basically you're done for life with the PGA.
Getting Rahm back would be huge because I think Koepka is on the downside.
Only issue with Rahm is he still has 2 years on his LIV contract I believe. Brooks contract was up, so it was easier for him to move (even with the stiff financial penalty from the PGA)
Where I think LIV tour / structure had a large disadvantage is that while they were able to attract quite a few older and established golfers, they have a hard time bringing in new talent to keep their league relevant. The PGA provides the structure for younger players to have that opportunity to become the stars of tomorrow.
So while LIV was able to buy some of the best talent in 2022 / 2023, their closed system did not allow for growth. When Sergio (46) and Phil (55) are some of the best golfers in your league...you are in trouble long term.
Pretty stiff penalties, but I'm willing to bet Brooks is still ahead on the whole deal. I love the way the PGA tour structured this re-entry program. We will take your top 4 players back, but you can keep all those other bums on your dumpy little tour.
