What Did I Miss?
My last radio show (shameless plug) of 2025 was October 18th. The PGA Tour was into the Fall season, the LPGA was on a month-long Asian swing, and everybody was watching football anyway. We decided to place the Saturday morning show on hiatus and targeted February 14th, the weekend after the Super Bowl, as the 2026 debut of “Making The Cut.”
If only we knew. I could be on the air an hour a day right now with the flood of golf news since the New Year. Let’s start with Brooksie.
Shortly before Christmas, Brooks Koepka announced that he was leaving LIV Golf, citing a desire to stay closer to home and family. There was no mention of a return to the PGA Tour at the time.
On January 12th, Koepka made the not-so-stunning announcement that he would indeed come back to the PGA Tour via something called the Returning Member Program, a special category created by Tour CEO Brian Rolapp to create a pathway for players like Koepka — recent winners of premiere events who can move the needle. Rolapp, who came over from the NFL and has no history in golf, understood the value of a player like Koepka. The job of a CEO is to increase value for stakeholders. With no sentiment, no nostalgic view of “how things used to be,” and no memory, Rolapp made a business decision.
Would he have done the same for Cameron Tringale, Matthew Wolff, or any of the other mules who defected to LIV? No. He’s got the Strategic Sports Group and $3 billion of investment breathing down his neck. Welcome to the new world.
All parties involved, including Koepka, agreed that there had to be some penalties for deserting the Tour.
Koepka will not be eligible for any equity in the new PGA Tour Enterprises business model for the next five years. You may have seen that number reported as somewhere between $50 and $80 million. Those numbers are a forecast. It’s a highly optimistic prediction of how much value Koepka *might* generate, based on how well he *might* play, for a business that hasn’t started yet. He can’t lose money he doesn’t have. It’s less a penalty and more a PGA Tour press release.
Koepka is not eligible for FedEx Cup bonus money if he makes the Tour Championship, which is indeed a good bit of cash. He lacks guaranteed spots in big-money signature events and cannot accept sponsor’s exemptions. However, any paycheck he earns on the golf course is still real money, and he can play his way into those signature events via the Aon Next 10 and Aon Swing 5, just like any other Tour pro.
One of the conditions of Koepka’s return is a $5 million donation to charity. Again: press release. The PGA Tour loves to remind us that its tournaments generate more money for charity than all other North American professional sports leagues combined. I’m sure that Koepka’s foundation (yes, he has a foundation, all the great ones have foundations) has already made plans for several such donations.
On the topic of cash: before he ever got to LIV, Koepka made $43.7 million on the PGA Tour, which is 30th all-time. He signed with LIV in 2022 on a contract worth a reported $125 million. He pocketed another $38 million on the course as captain of the vaunted Smash GC squad (who can forget their dominant performance at LIV Golf Las Vegas in ’24?).
Summary: financially, Brooksie will be fine. But will the lads welcome him back?
Upon deciding to return to the Tour, Koepka’s first phone call was to the Godfather: Tiger. Everything runs through the Big Cat. Woods gave his blessing, and judging by the reception Koepka received from fans and fellow players at the Farmers, almost all is forgiven.
And then there’s Patrick Reed.
On January 25th, Captain America won the Dubai Desert Classic, his fourth career DP World Tour victory. While celebrating, Reed casually mentioned that he had not yet renewed his contract with LIV. Whatever Reed was asking for, he didn’t get it. Three days later, he announced he was returning to the PGA Tour.
“I’m a traditionalist at heart, and I was born to play on the PGA Tour, which is where my story began with my wife, Justine,” said Reed.
Justine! PLEASE come back to Twitter.
The PGA Tour said in a statement that Reed will be eligible to start competing in its events on Aug. 25 of this year, meaning he could compete as a non-member via sponsor exemption in fall tournaments. He could also improve his status for 2027 via the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai standings — he’s currently 2nd — and if he stays inside the top 50 in the world rankings, he’s exempt into the final stage of Q-School, which I would pay any amount of money to see.
As a former Masters champion, Reed is going back to Augusta for life. As the 29th-ranked player in the world, he’s currently exempt into the US Open, PGA Championship, and Open Championship in 2026. Get ready for a lot of Patrick Reed.
Lastly: creating a women’s version of TGL seems like a no-brainer. The indoor golf league had no trouble finding LPGA players willing to commit — Lydia Ko, Brooke Henderson, Charley Hull, Rose Zhang, and world number one Jeeno Thitikul, among others.
Absent from that roster is world number two Nelly Korda, who isn’t sold on the WTGL. Her issue is the “W.”
Korda told Golfweek: “I think it’s a huge and unbelievable miss that we’re not playing alongside the men. There’s no greater way to grow the game, and it would have been revolutionary. It would have been the first time, I think, that men and women are on the same playing field, playing for the same exact amount of money.”
She’s right. Lexi Thompson and Tiger Woods on the same tee box at the SoFi Center is unquestionably good TV. Korda added that she is “still weighing out the time commitment” before deciding if she’ll take part, which is leverage from the highest ranked American player in the world and the face of the LPGA.
Shameless plug II: “Making The Cut, with Whit Watson” is back on Saturday, February 14 on 96.9 The Game in Orlando and AM 930 FOX Sports Radio Jacksonville, plus nationwide on the free IHeartRadio app. Search “Making The Cut.”
