PGA Tour’s Wesley Bryan Suspended For Competing in LIV Golf Creator Event

PGA Tour member Wesley Bryan publicly addressed the rumors that he has been suspended for competing in LIV Golf’s content creator-centric event, The Duels: Miami, last month.

“No, I don’t have regrets,” Bryan told golf outlet Monday Q Info. “That video is one of the most powerful videos in YouTube golf. We are going to continue to… grow the game through YouTube.”

Bryan, who has made $5.24 million since joining the PGA Tour in 2017, including the RBC Heritage that year, has played less competitive golf in recent years as the YouTube channel he runs with his brother George (not a PGA Tour member) has ballooned to more than 550,000 subscribers.

With the move toward being more of a golf content creator than touring pro, Bryan, 35, and his brother competed in the PGA Tour’s Creator Classic event ahead of the Players Championship in March. Wesley Bryan finished tied for sixth out of the 10 participants, while George, 37, lost in a three three-person playoff won by YouTube golf star Grant Horvat.

Just a week after the Players Championship concluded, LIV Golf announced its own creator event, The Duels: Miami, featuring six LIV players each paired with a content creator. The event promised a $250,000 purse.

Both Bryan brothers competed in the LIV event, as did Horvat. Wesley finished fifth paired with Dustin Johnson, and George, paired with Sergio Garcia, won the competition and the $150,000 first-place prize. It’s unclear whether participation fees were paid out on top of the purse. The event, which was exclusively released on Horvat’s YouTube channel, has more than 2 million views. 

The PGA Tour did not initially comment on Bryan’s participation, nor that of Horvat and the other creators that had also played in the Creator Classic: George Bryan, Fat Perez, and Luke Kwon, who won the first-ever Creator Classic ahead of last year’s Tour Championship in March. 

On April 3, Phil Mickelson, a founding member of LIV Golf, tweeted that Bryan had been suspended for a year by the PGA Tour. 

That original tweet has since been deleted, but on Wednesday, Mickelson weighed in again, tweeting: “Here’s a question. Normally when an entity violates independent contract law, they deny that it happened and forces the contractor/individual to prove that it did. In this case the  PGA Tour blatantly admits they are illegally banning an independent contractor so why doesn’t they DOJ step in and enforce the law? Why does the individual have to sue to enforcer the law? DOJ do your fffing job!”

This week, Bryan told Monday Q he hadn’t actually been informed how long the suspension will last and indicated he would follow the appeal process that the PGA Tour has in place. 

“For the last eight or nine years, the opportunities have been amazing,” Bryan said. “I’m extremely grateful to the Tour for that. I don’t want this to be the end of my professional golf career.” 

The whole dustup is just the latest sign of continued tension between the two golf tours, which in 2023 appeared to have mended things, with the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia (which backs LIV) announcing a “framework agreement” to “unify” men’s professional golf. However, they still remain far from a deal, according to multiple Front Office Sports sources and public statements by golfers like Jon Rahm.

Bryan did not have full status on the PGA Tour. His most recent PGA Tour result was a missed cut at the Puerto Rico Open the week before the Players in March. He also missed the cut at The American Express in January, but did make $74,000 for finishing tied for 25th at the Farmers Insurance Open later that month.

While it looks like the PGA Tour is not giving Bryan much grace for participating in a LIV event, it appears there will not be an all-out war on the creators, at least, despite reports of initial unhappiness from the PGA Tour.

Horvat said Wednesday on The Smylie Show that he has received an invite to participate in the PGA Tour’s Barracuda Championship, which is an opposite field event that will be played the same week as the Open Championship in Northern Ireland, the final major championship of the year.

The PGA Tour has two more Creator Classic scheduled this season, ahead of the Truist Championship next month, and the Tour Championship in August. The fields for those events have not been released.