What was the last shot you remember Cam Smith hitting?
Did you watch Cam Smith hit a golf shot on TV in the year 2025?
2024?
How many LIV teams can you name? Crushers? Rangegoats, maybe? Can you name five LIV teams off the top of your head? Do you know how many LIV golf teams there are in total?
Do you follow the Lock Zone, Open Zone and Drop Zone numbers with great interest, wondering which LIV players will be guaranteed a contract for the following LIV season, and who is vulnerable to relegation?
Have you gone to the LIV online shop to secure your Legion XIII Two Tone Hat?
Would you recognize the Ripper CG team logo if you saw it in a lineup? Could you draw it from memory?
(I’ve now named four LIV teams. Can you name a fifth?)
Do you know which team won the LIV Golf Team Championship last year?
Do you care?
Chances are you don’t. And you’re not alone.
Chances are you’ve seen Bryson DeChambeau hit more shots on YouTube than you have during a LIV tournament broadcast.
Prior to the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black, your last memory of Jon Rahm was more likely his Masters win in 2023 than his back-to-back individual champion titles at LIV for the 2024 and 2025 seasons.
It’s possible the last shot you remember Cam Smith hitting was his masterful putt around the Road Hole bunker on the 17th hole at the Old Course at St. Andrews en route to his first major win at the 150th Open Championship in 2022, before he surprisingly announced he would be joining LIV Golf in August of that year.
Four years and some change after LIV officially launched in October 2021, taking some of the world’s best talent with it, and the startup league has yet to capture meaningful mainstream broadcast traction.
Yesterday Brian Rolapp and the PGA Tour announced a pathway for five-time major winner and former LIV Smash GC team captain, Brooks Koepka, to rejoin the PGA Tour in 2026.
Under the PGA Tour’s Returning Member Program, Koepka is required to make a one-time $5 million charitable donation as part of his reinstatement. He is also ineligible to receive FedExCup Bonus Program payments for the 2026 season and will forfeit eligibility to earn equity in the PGA Tour’s Player Equity Program for the next five years (2026–2030).
In total, the Tour estimates that this five-year equity forfeiture could cost Koepka approximately $50 million to $85 million in potential earnings, depending on his performance during the season.
The Tour has made the same pathway available to Cam Smith, Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm, with an expiration date to make their decision by February 2, 2026.
The math is stark: despite a potential $50–85 million opportunity cost, players like Rahm—who has already earned tens of millions since joining LIV—would still be positioned to generate significant future income on the PGA TOUR through results and sponsorship value.
For fans of golf, perhaps most importantly, it would put the beloved trio back into more recent memory, in tournaments that have a lot more eyeballs watching.