The PGA Tour’s new CEO, when asked about reunification in the men’s pro game, says he has one goal.
He’s focused on one tour.
“Make the PGA Tour better,” Brian Rolapp said.
But it was unclear Wednesday whether that meant bringing together the Tour and LIV Golf, leagues that have been operating against each other since LIV started play in June of 2022. In June of 2023, the Tour and the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, which funds LIV, had agreed to start talks on a funding deal, but those discussions have stalled.
Still, thoughts of play between the sides, beyond the majors, have continued, and, in a press conference ahead of the Tour’s Players Championship, Rolapp was asked whether unification was still part of his “brief” going forward.
He answered this way:
“I think I’ve been clear about this — my brief is to make the PGA Tour better,” Rolapp said. “I’m open to whatever makes the PGA Tour better. That is my brief. Better for fans, better for our members.
“So that’s what I’m focused on, and that’s where I put all my efforts.”
What that will likely mean for the foreseeable future is a separation continuation; this week, notably, the Tour is playing its showcase event, while LIV is playing in Hong Kong. But Scott O’Neil, LIV Golf’s CEO, has said he has talked with Rolapp. Late last year, during Sportico’s “Invest in Sports Conference,” O’Neil said the conversations also centered on improvement, though those were in terms of pro golf as a whole.
“Generally we have a common view on what could be or should be the landscape of golf over the next several years,” O’Neil said. “There’s an opportunity for the whole golf world to come together and grow this pie.”
Wednesday, Rolapp also answered two other questions that had LIV Golf ties.
LIV Golf players at the Players Championship?
Ahead of this year’s Players Championship, there were renewed whispers that the event would seek major status, though Rolapp seemed to shut that thought down on Wednesday. (“I think what’s important,” he said, “that’s not for us to decide.”) Still, the Players remains without LIV pros, and Rolapp was asked if they would ever be allowed into the event.
“That’s not sort of a priority I’ve put on my list,” he said. “So that’s not something I’ve sort of considered to date. There’s other priorities other than that.”
On Jan. 12, the PGA Tour said Brooks Koepka was returning to the Tour via the newly created “Returning Member Program,” a policy that was also open to three other LIV players (Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Cameron Smith) through their major championship wins over the past four years and featured a Feb. 2 deadline series of financial penalties. The program was created after LIV and Koepka announced on Dec. 23 that he was exiting the league he joined in 2022.
On Wednesday, Rolapp was asked whether the program would expand. Notably, just over a month after Koepka’s announcement, Patrick Reed also said he was leaving LIV to play again on the PGA Tour, though the Tour said he would serve a one-year suspension.
“The returning member program was really designed for a set of circumstances that arrived on our doorstep a bit unexpectedly,” Rolapp said. “As I mentioned, we heard from Brooks on the 23rd of December. He informed us that he was out of contract, and so we had a new situation to deal with.
“We created a very short-term program that applied to Brooks or anyone who may have been in his similar situation. Turns out, others were not. We were very explicit that that was a one-time situational returning member program, and I stand by that.
“I don’t know the contractual relationship or the terms of others on the LIV Tour, and they have contracts and those should be honored. But we do have a pathway; Patrick Reed is clearly taking advantage of that pathway as he’s, I guess, out of his contractual commitment. And so I think the LIV players know what those pathways are, and until they change, those are the pathways.”
