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Jon Rahm said he would be willing to take a deal to return to the PGA Tour similar to the one fellow former LIV Golf member Brooks Koepka struck ahead of the 2026 season.
“Most likely, yeah,” Rahm said Tuesday ahead of competing in this week’s Abu Dhabi Aldar Golf Championship on the DP World Tour. “Why not? Yeah, but it’s a big if. I seriously doubt I get offered the same deal that Brooks did. But yeah, if I got offered exactly the same penalties as him, I probably would do it, yes.”
Koepka was the first and only member of the PGA Tour’s returning member program in January that came with strict financial limitations. Koepka is not eligible for the PGA Tour’s player equity program for five years, wasn’t eligible to earn FedExCup bonus money this year, and agreed to make a $5 million donation to charity. He was also not granted immediate entry into the eight $20 million signature events during the 2026 season, and failed to qualify for any of them through his play at other tournaments.
Rahm said he has “yet to have a discussion with the PGA Tour to see if there’s any path back for next year.” Rahm was eligible for the returning member program in January alongside Bryson DeChambeau and Cam Smith, but declined the opportunity; it’s likely that he would have faced severe financial penalties for breaking his LIV contract at the time. But now he is free from the leave after reaching a settlement that saw him retain his NIL (name, image, and likeness) rights and forfeit all remaining payments.
PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp has said multiple times this year that there are no immediate plans to revive the returning member program. The standard penalty for players wanting to return from LIV has been a one-year suspension since competing in their last LIV event, which for Rahm was late August. Rahm remains a member of the DP World Tour and exempt into the four major championships in 2027.
“I haven’t really gone too deeply into it just because there’s still a question mark,” Rahm said. “Obviously Brooks was able to go back through certain circumstances. I don’t know if the possibility of that would be open for me or not, but if I have to fulfill a one-year suspension, I think it’s a pretty good position to be that, worst-case scenario, I get to play on a wonderful tour for a whole year.”
Looking Back at LIV
Rahm, who made more than $100 million in prize and bonus money at LIV from 2024 through 2026, said returning to the league in its next iteration “wasn’t really ever much of a consideration.” LIV remains in its Chapter 11 bankruptcy case, targeting emergence in January so that it can conduct a 2027 season. LIV has said it would host 10 events across the world next year with 75 players per event and a continuation of its team model.
“As much as I liked the project and the idea on, let’s say, LIV 1.0, I wasn’t thrilled with the changes they were doing to 2.0, and I just wasn’t willing to follow that path,” Rahm said. “It wasn’t anything special, anything that stood out. I just didn’t like where they were going with 2.0.” Rahm added, “It seemed like it was going away from team golf and some of the things that made LIV, LIV. It just became more of a regular tour.”
Rahm is the biggest star of a notable crop of LIV players that have announced they won’t return to the league in 2027, including Tyrrell Hatton, Tom McKibbin, Ian Poulter, David Puig, Adrian Meronk, Sergio Garcia, Louis Oosthuizen, Graeme McDowell, and others. Bryson DeChambeau remains the biggest proponent of LIV 2.0, should it get off the ground.
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