Not that anyone feels sorry for them, but with LIV Golf out of business, there are 50-some-odd professional golfers who will have to scramble to find a place to play in 2027. What Tour do they play? What kind of reception will they get from former colleagues and tournaments?
Not every LIV golfer got $20 or $30 or $100 million or more to join the upstart tour, so they have not all received what’s called “generational money.” Most of the golfers who were paid that kind of cash already had earned millions on the PGA Tour or European Tour anyway. They had other reasons for a change of scenery.
Some are going to land on their feet. Jon Rahm is already restarting his career on the DP World Tour, and he’s hoping for a mother-may-I pass to get back to the PGA Tour faster than a year.
Brooks Koepka is already back on the PGA Tour and is working his way up, hoping to get to the top. Unfortunately, he’s No. 93 right now on the FedEx points list. Fortunately, he still has an exemption in place for winning the 2023 PGA Championship, which should give him automatic entry into all regular PGA Tour events for the next two seasons. It won’t get him into the Signature Events. He has to earn that on his own, but Brooks likes a challenge.
Sergio Garcia turns 47, yes 47, as unbelievable as that sounds, this January. Most likely, he will play the majority of his last three years in Europe, although it’s a big commute living in Austin. Is he ready to grovel a little bit to get back into the good graces of the PGA Tour? (It’s hard to imagine Sergio groveling.) Europe will definitely want him around for future Ryder Cups because he has won more Ryder Cup matches than any other European player in the history of the event.
In 1999, along with a handful of other writers, I stood within a yardstick of Sergio as he took a call from the King of Spain after his final round challenge of Tiger Woods at the PGA Championship. In three years, maybe I’ll see him tee off in a PGA Tour Champions event. Wow. That’s something for a diary, if I’d been smart enough to keep one. Maybe I should get hypnotized to remember all that.
Cameron Smith had the season of his life in 2022 when he won The Players in the spring and the British Open in the summer. His best remaining opportunities are probably on the U.S. Tour. The Australian tournaments pay so little that golfers who are good can’t afford to stay there and play. Next year is the last on Smith’s exemption for winning The Players and the British Open, but with the jump to LIV, will he have to sit out for a year losing that last season of exempt status? It’s a question for the higher-ups at the PGA Tour. According to AI or SI, whichever you prefer, he still has his house on the intracoastal waterway in Ponte Vedra, and because he’s a boat guy, that would be hard to give up.
Dustin Johnson is another boat guy. He was rich before LIV came along so DJ probably kept his house in Jupiter, Florida. Except for the auto traffic that far south, it’s an ideal hangout for a rich guy golfer, and he can always hire a helicopter if he has to go someplace in a hurry. That’s what Greg Norman used to do.
Johnson turns 43 next June, so, in theory, his best golf is behind him, but his bad golf is still better, probably, than players ranked 75th in points and lower. He can stay around as long as he wants to. If he wants to play in Europe for a year, it’s just a five-hour or six-hour flight to most locations. Maybe his father-in-law – you know, what’s his name, that Gretzky fella -- will tell him to get a couple of hockey stick putters and the two of them will use those to win the pro-am part of the AT&T Pebble Beach.
Europeans like Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood may try to play PGA Tour Champions. Again, it requires Monday qualifying at this juncture, or some sort of sponsor exemptions. They could spice it up and not in an objectionable way. The two will no doubt feature behind the scenes in future Ryder Cups.
It’s hard to believe that Bubba Watson is nearly 50, but he is. He’s reached the ripe old age of 48 and no doubt got some extra cash from PIF for those two green jackets he earned. If he wants to play PGA Tour Champions in a couple years, he would likely be quite popular with the fans. What he does between now and then is probably go fishing. He’s not going to want to play someplace else for a year and then, at age 49, try to rejoin the PGA Tour. Maybe he just practices until he’s 50 and tries to Monday qualify or gets some tournament exemptions for PGA Tour Champions.
Martin Kaymer was a burst of light arcing across the golf sky. He won two majors and kind of disappeared. Whether he will want to return to the PGA Tour at age 41 is an unknown. Maybe he’s more comfortable in Europe. He’s a dad now, so it may depend on where the Kaymers want to raise their son, who was born in 2022.
David Puig and Joaquin Niemann were young enough when this LIV business started that, even if they have to play elsewhere for a year, they are still in their primes for contending on the PGA Tour. All they need is a return engagement.
Then there’s Bryson DeChambeau. Does he want his own fleet of YouTube channels? Does he want to play professional golf? Does he want both? Does he know?
DeChambeau is the biggest question mark with the biggest following. He has all kinds of potential on and off the course. With two U.S. Open victories in his back pocket, he doesn’t have to prove anything to anybody. His next chapter is about to unfold.
Next to last, there’s Phil Mickelson. He had so much on course talent – winning the PGA at 50 -- and he has wasted it in an unbelievably spectacular fashion. He has so much personality that it’s a shame he threw it away. Unfortunately, Mickelson’s still radioactive because of some of the atom-bomb caliber things he has said in the last five years. There’s just no way to unhear some of it. You just want to shake him by the shoulders and ask what were you thinking? He’s insulted the PGA Tour. He’s insulted many of the players. It’s beyond oh that’s just Phil being Phil. He must have some issues and gremlins that keep him up at night.
I honestly don’t know where he goes to get a life back. Buys an uninhabited island in Hawaii?
Mickelson was right about getting more money for the players, but it was at the expense of the entire Tour. Between Mickelson and COVID, it’s a miracle the PGA Tour survived. Jay Monahan should get whatever the highest award in golf is just for getting the Tour through it.
Finally. Greg Norman.
Because he isn’t from here, he underestimated the memory of the people in the U.S. who have NOT forgotten about 9/11 and the country brought it to our doorstep. That day is not a nothingburger here and never will be forgotten.
It’s possible that, with LIV, Norman has finally burned his last bridge in golf, but he got paid a lot to do it. He’s going to need very thick skin if he ever shows up at any golf tournament in the U.S.
Plain and simple, both Norman and Mickelson are damaged goods. They are likely to be objects of pointing and whispering wherever they go. Real lessons in career-wrecking. But they can be happy standing on great piles of cash. As far as Mickelson is concerned, he may choose to resurrect himself somehow. It’s been done by people in other walks of life.
And, finally, the answer to PIF and His Excellency Yasir Al-Rumayyan to the question of whether memberships at Augusta National can be bought is still no.
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