Brooks Koepka’s PGA Tour presentation to Tommy Fleetwood
Brooks Koepka’s return to the PGA Tour has many trying to see the bigger picture.
Tommy Fleetwood took the opposite approach.
The PGA Tour’s decision to welcome Koepka back to LIV Golf in the form of “top-level” players was a devastating blow to the renegade league. Koepka is the first big name to return to the PGA Tour. And while the PGA Tour is trying to entice Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and Cameron Smith to use a limited “Returning Member Program” to follow Koepka, the five-time major champion’s decision to return is about one man. That’s how Fleetwood sees it.
“I think in general, people want to play where their goals or dreams are aligned,” Fleetwood said on Tuesday ahead of the Hero Dubai Desert Classic. “They want to play where they feel they can chase, I personally play where I feel I can still chase my dreams, and I’m in the best place to be the best golfer I can be, other people may feel differently.
“I think that’s what Brooks is doing, he wants to play where he feels like he can get the most out of it and play his best golf, obviously that’s when he makes decisions and ends up coming back.”
Rahm, DeChambeau and Smith have already said they plan to continue playing at the LIV and won’t be making their way back to the PGA Tour on Feb. 2. DeChambeau’s contract with LIV expires at the end of the 2026 season, and the two-time US Open champion now has more power than any golfer in history. He admitted Koepka’s departure had put pressure on his contract renewal talks and said playing four majors and spending the rest of his time as a golfer on YouTube was a “viable” option. Rahm has several years left on his deal, and it’s unclear how much money he’ll have to leave on the table to try to get back on the PGA Tour. As for Smith, he seems to be really happy with the format of the LIV team and its annual tour of his home country of Australia.
As for whether Koepka’s decision to cross over to the PGA Tour will be the first domino in a long line of high-profile players from the renegade league, Fleetwood has no answers.
No one does.
“What the future holds, I don’t know,” said Fleetwood. “I saw the interview with the guys, Jon and Bryson and Cameron, and it’s clear they’re serious about playing LIV Golf, and that’s where they want to play. Who knows?
“I [PGA] Tour is in a good place. We play unbelievable events at a ridiculous amount of money on the PGA Tour, and I think it’s been a great place and I’m very grateful to play where I play. It’s a good thing for the PGA Tour that Brooks is back and playing. Where it stands after that, I really don’t know.”
Tour Secrets: Koepka’s return, Rolapp’s leadership, LIV’s next move
By:
GOLF Organizers
While Fleetwood doesn’t know what Koepka’s return means to the big picture of pro golf’s civil war, two of the PGA Tour’s biggest stars have a different take. There is a sign in Koepka’s return and a statement about where things are headed.
“We’re getting a player of his generation who is probably a top three player who has gone on another tour,” Tiger Woods said of Koepka’s return after last week’s TGL event. “We played over there, and I didn’t want to come back here and leave in the morning to come back. That says a lot about the PGA Tour, where we’re going, what we’ve done, what we’ve accomplished with the players that have stayed and supported the Tour. To have another top-level player that these guys are going to try to beat, that’s what the fans wanted. That’s exactly what our fans wanted on our show, I think our fans wanted to talk to them.”
Added by Rory McIlroy in an exclusive interview no The Telegraph’s James Corrigan: “It’s not like they signed big players this year, I don’t think they’re signing anyone who moves the needle and I don’t think they’ll sign Bryson again for hundreds of millions of dollars, but even if they change their product, I don’t think they’ll be paying the same thing.
“And they lost Brooks.”
Brooks Koepka will make the club official as a member of the PGA Tour at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines next week. He plays where he wants to play, on a Tour that he believes gives him the best ability to be the best version of Brooks Koepka.
Whether it becomes more than that remains to be seen.
