Justin Rose was a prime target for LIV Golf when the then-Saudi-backed league burst onto the scene in 2022. He was a former major champion and former World No. 1 whose game had dipped as the twilight of his career appeared to beckon. LIV was paying for names and resumes, hoping that big names would help drive interest. But while Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Sergio Garcia, and others left, Rose turned down LIV’s offer, choosing instead to dig it out of the dirt and rediscover his world-class game.
“My career goals have always only been attainable by staying on the European Tour and the PGA Tour because access to them is not, you know, not possible the other way,” Rose said on Sunday after winning this year’s Farmers Insurance Open about his decision to reject LIV and the ripple effects of it.
“But obviously I want to play amongst the best players in the world. That obviously for me is kind of what keeps me motivated, what keeps me hungry, what keeps me pushing. So yeah, it would have been easy to potentially do other things, but none of that excited me, I don’t think really. And none of it gave me access to what I wanted to achieve. So I kind of always felt like my childhood self wouldn’t feel very good about making that decision and kind of giving up on those dreams.”
Justin Rose wanted something more than money. He believed his dreams were still on the horizon, and all that was required to reach them was hard work and a love of the craft. Rose’s hard work and self-belief paid off. He returned to the winner’s circle on the PGA Tour twice and had near-misses at the 2024 Open, 2025 Masters and 2026 Masters.
Now, four-plus years after LIV’s emergence, the rebel league is in bankruptcy court as it tries to reinvent itself as LIV 2.0 without the backing of Saudi millions. Several marquee players, including Jon Rahm, have already departed the league, hoping to return to the tours they once called home. Rahm and others plan to play on the DP World Tour in 2027 before eventually returning to the PGA Tour once the dust settles and the punishments for defection are decided.
Rory McIlroy, once the PGA Tour’s lead spokesperson in golf’s civil conflict, has no problem with the defectors coming back and making the golf world whole. Rose feels the same.
“[Rahm’s departure] is good for the established tours, whether that be the DP World Tour in the short term or the PGA Tour in the long term,” Rose told Sam Frost of The Mirror in New Delhi at the DP World India Championship. “Obviously, Jon’s not the only one. There’s a lot of other great players in situations that he’s found himself in. It’s been an experiment; a whirlwind four or five years. No hard feelings from my point of view. Everyone is welcome back. It’s great for golf for players to be able to play against the best players in the world as often as we can. That’s what we’ve always talked about and always wanted.”
Rose noted that while the disruption to the pro-golf ecosystem was jarring, LIV’s arrival ultimately benefited every player, whether they stayed or left. Now that it’s over, it’s time for everyone to look forward.
“And I think the disruption of it all, the PGA Tour, DP World Tour, have had to become better versions of themselves. I think basically pretty much every player in the game has benefited one way or another, and hopefully it can now settle and we can find a really good balance.”
Earlier this week at an economic forum in New Delhi, McIlroy discussed where he felt LIV and the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) went wrong and why he, Tiger Woods, and others quickly turned down the upstart league, believing it was bad for the sport and wouldn’t ultimately succeed.
“LIV had probably like half of a good idea that was executed pretty poorly,” McIlroy said at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum. “They had a lot of capital, but I think a lot of that capital was wasted in some ways, and I think they could have used that money a lot more strategically, and they could have partnered with some of the governing bodies of the game, and they certainly could have done better things with it instead of just enriching tour pros that were already making a lot of money.
“Tiger and I, at the very start back in 2022 when this thing kicked off, we were certainly the two that were maybe the most vocal against it,” McIlroy said. “But we were probably the two that had the most to lose as well in terms of our stature within the PGA Tour, and so — I think we both felt that this wasn’t good for the game and this was going to fracture the game. But also everyone around the game has interests, and we were about to launch TGL, and we thought LIV could have taken something away from TGL, which it did because some players went to LIV and — you had to be a PGA Tour member to play in TGL. So, you know, everyone has different interests in the game, and you’re trying to protect your interests, but you’re also trying to protect the interests of the game as a whole.”
LIV’s bankruptcy case is currently moving through the courts. On Wednesday, lawyers for LIV said they would know by the end of the month if the league would be “winding things down” or ramping up for 2.0. But no matter how LIV’s Chapter 11 case ends, McIlroy believes the golf wars are finally over.
“It’s hard,” McIlroy said about LIV’s chances of getting version 2.0 off the ground. “It looks like every day that goes by, there’s another player that was on LIV that says that they’re not going to rejoin for LIV 2.0. It is going to be very difficult for them to get out of this Chapter 11 bankruptcy and go forward. But if they do, it’s certainly not going to be a threat to the traditional order of the game as it maybe once was.”
The path back to the PGA Tour for Rahm and others leaving LIV is unclear. PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp has not given any indication of when, if, or how they will be welcomed back. Rolapp has said the “Returning Member Program,” which brought Brooks Koepka back, is no longer available, and there have been no talks of resurrecting it. Rolapp also said he and the PGA Tour would need clear evidence that any player wishing to return has no contractual obligations to LIV before they engage in conversations about a potential return. Rahm, Sergio Garcia and others have had their contracts terminated and are expected to tee it up on the DP World Tour in 2027. Others like Bryson DeChambeau and Dustin Johnson had their contracts terminated but have not yet made their future plans clear.
Even if LIV 2.0 gets off the ground, pro golf’s civil war appears to be over, and Rose and McIlroy are ready to bury grudges and put the sport back together so it can move forward.
“A rising tide lifts all boats,” McIlroy said about bringing defectors back. “And I think having some of these players back is beneficial for the business of the tours.”
