ATLANTA (AP) — PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp offered a path back to a small number of LIV Golf players at the start of the year with a tight deadline to accept it and a warning that “once the door closes, there is no promise that this path will be available again.”
It's a hot topic now that the LIV Golf League is done with its shortened season. The speculation is just starting to ramp up on which players might be wanting back, Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau
chief among them.
Brooks Koepka mutually ended his contract with LIV Golf when he left at the end of 2025, and that would be a starting point now.
“Anyone who’s interested in coming to the PGA Tour needs to demonstrate that they are relieved of their contractual commitments or any tail obligations they might have in that legacy model,” Rolapp said Tuesday. “Brooks certainly did that, and until then, we weren’t really able to consider anything seriously. I would say the same thing here.”
Any path back does sound like a smooth one. Along with preaching meritocracy, Rolapp brought up rules that applied to the players who bolted for LIV Golf with big signing bonuses. LIV players typically have been banned from PGA Tour-sanctioned events for one year from the time of their last LIV appearance.
“The tour is a membership organization. It has rules. Those rules exist for lots of reasons — for fair, competitive reasons,” Rolapp said.
“Rules only matter if they’re enforced,” he said. “So accountability and discipline are essential to any organization, and certainly for the integrity of the tour and for the game, especially in a game that prides itself on rules and integrity.”
One of the popular topics for years was looking at the list of players who have earned more than $10 million in their PGA Tour careers without ever winning.
Si Woo Kim is on the verge of passing $10 million in one year without winning. He is at $9,735,444, assured of going over the mark because last place at the Tour Championship pays $355,000.
There hasn't been many last-place finishes for the 31-year-old South Korean.
He has been runner-up three times this year, most recently in the first FedEx Cup playoff event (by eight shots to Scottie Scheffler). He has 11 finishes in the top 10 — only Scheffler has more — and his only missed cut was at the U.S. Open.
“I think it’s the best year for me, like all my golf career,” Kim said. “I’ve been playing so much consistently this year. I haven’t won yet, but even if not win, I still like the way I finished this year.”
The biggest change has been his putting, going to a long putter. It's still well below average — he ranks No. 106 in the key putting stat — but it's his highest ranking in that category, and a big improvement from being No. 161 last year.
“I was struggling with the putting yips pretty much the last 10 years,” he said. “Like shaking hands during putting. First year I got broomstick I won Sony Open after Presidents Cup. Now without the putting yips I think I can play good.”
He's still not able to take down Scheffler in their money games at Royal Oaks in Dallas. Kim beat him once at the start of the year, but they played another match and Scheffler got it all back. Kim was asked if he could estimate how much he has lost to the world's No. 1 player this year.
“I can’t say how much I lost, but I think I’m paying for his second son, all the diapers,” he said.
The PGA Tour Player of the Year award is getting plenty of attention going into the Tour Championship. Scottie Scheffler was a leading contender until Wyndham Clark won the BMW Championship, giving him three wins, including a major. Scheffler has two wins but leads most of the major statistical categories.
Another race could be decided at East Lake. Kristoffer Reitan of Norway and Alex Fitzpatrick of England are the only two PGA Tour rookies to reach the Tour Championship.
Reitan won a signature event at the Truist Championship at Quail Hollow. Fitzpatrick didn't have a PGA Tour card until he teamed with his older brother, 2023 U.S. Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick, to win the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.
Fitzpatrick since then, however, has had four top 10s, all against some of the strongest fields in the signature events. Reitan has two other top 10s beyond the Truist.
“I would say maybe it all comes down to this week,” Fitzpatrick said. "But truthfully it’s not something that I’ve really thought about that much. I think with everything else that’s gone on this year, to be here has been amazing.
“Whatever happens this week between me and him, whoever is the Rookie of the Year is amazing,” he said. “But we’ve both had great years, and we’ll both be proud no matter what.”
Jackson Koivun also is a rookie and won the 3M Open, but his body of work didn’t start until he turned pro at the Canadian Open in early June.
The race to replace Tiger Woods atop the PGA Tour career earnings is now a two-way race, with Scottie Scheffler still having the advantage.
Scheffler is $608,506 away from passing Woods, who has led the career earnings list since Feb. 13, 2000. That would require a minimum of 13th place at the Tour Championship, where the $40 million purse now counts as official money instead of a bonus.
Rory McIlroy, who picked up $1.36 million for his third-place finish at the BMW Championship last week, needs to make $3,150,795 at the Tour Championship to pass Woods. That would require a minimum of fourth place.
Preston Stout of Oklahoma State will get exemptions to the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach and the British Open at St. Andrews for winning the Mark H. McCormack Medal as the leading male in the 2026 World Amateur Golf Ranking. Playing them requires that he remain an amateur. ... The new PGA Tour schedule in 2028 will be a lot more compact, freeing up the latter part of the year for the European tour and some of the national opens. Patrick Cantlay is not one who sounds terribly interested in going. “I do think the fall is a nice time for Europe to have their biggest events, but for me right now, the offseason is key in feeling fresh and ready to go, especially when I imagine a schedule that’s even more golf over a shorter period of time,” he said. ... Getting to the Tour Championship means Adam Scott's streak playing in the majors, assuming he stays healthy, will reach at least 106 in a row. He's at 101. He is assured of all four majors next year and the Masters (past champion) in 2028.
The Solheim Cup between the United States and Europe will feature only 13 of the top 50 players currently in the women's world ranking.
“If I don’t get love at the Presidents Cup as a USA guy, then I don’t know. I might move to Mexico or something.” — Wyndham Clark, joking about crowds who always seem to pull for the other guy.
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